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Singapore Zoo Breeds First Panda Cub

Jia Jia was inseminated with frozen semen from 13-year-old Kai Kai. (Handout via AFP)
Jia Jia was inseminated with frozen semen from 13-year-old Kai Kai. (Handout via AFP)
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Singapore Zoo Breeds First Panda Cub

Jia Jia was inseminated with frozen semen from 13-year-old Kai Kai. (Handout via AFP)
Jia Jia was inseminated with frozen semen from 13-year-old Kai Kai. (Handout via AFP)

A panda bred via artificial insemination was born in Singapore's zoo on Saturday, the first cub to be born in the city-state.

Jia Jia, the zoo's 12-year-old female giant panda, gave birth to the cub after she was inseminated with frozen semen from 13-year-old Kai Kai, Wildlife Reserves Singapore announced on Sunday.

After several failed attempts in previous years, the zoo's animal carers -- working with experts from China -- hoped the pandas would mate naturally but ultimately decided to use artificial insemination.

"Jia Jia's first pregnancy and birth of a cub is a significant milestone for us in the care of this threatened species in Singapore," said Cheng Wen-Haur, Wildlife Reserves Singapore's deputy CEO, in a press release.

"This is the result of good animal care, assisted reproductive science and sheer perseverance on the part of our staff coupled with valuable advice from the China panda experts."

The pandas are on a 10-year loan from China and arrived in Singapore in 2012.

Panda reproduction -- in captivity or in the wild -- is notoriously difficult, experts say, as few of the animals get in the mood or, even when they do, do not know how to mate.

Further complicating matters, the window for conception is small since female pandas are in heat only once a year, for about 24-48 hours.

The giant panda is listed as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with fewer than 2,000 thought to remain in the wild.

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Young Mammoth Remains Found Nearly Intact in Siberian Permafrost

Researchers stand behind glass fencing as they show the carcass of a baby mammoth, which is estimated to be over 50,000 years old and was found in the Siberian permafrost in the Batagaika crater in the Verkhoyansky district of Yakutia - Reuters
Researchers stand behind glass fencing as they show the carcass of a baby mammoth, which is estimated to be over 50,000 years old and was found in the Siberian permafrost in the Batagaika crater in the Verkhoyansky district of Yakutia - Reuters
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Young Mammoth Remains Found Nearly Intact in Siberian Permafrost

Researchers stand behind glass fencing as they show the carcass of a baby mammoth, which is estimated to be over 50,000 years old and was found in the Siberian permafrost in the Batagaika crater in the Verkhoyansky district of Yakutia - Reuters
Researchers stand behind glass fencing as they show the carcass of a baby mammoth, which is estimated to be over 50,000 years old and was found in the Siberian permafrost in the Batagaika crater in the Verkhoyansky district of Yakutia - Reuters

Researchers in Siberia are conducting tests on a juvenile mammoth whose remarkably well-preserved remains were discovered in thawing permafrost after more than 50,000 years.

The creature, resembling a small elephant with a trunk, was recovered from the Batagaika crater, a huge depression more than 80 metres (260 feet) deep which is widening as a result of climate change.

The carcass, weighing more than 110 kg (240 pounds), was brought to the surface on an improvized stretcher, said Maxim Cherpasov, head of the Lazarev Mammoth Museum Laboratory in the city of Yakutsk, according to Reuters.

He said the mammoth was probably a little over a year old when it died, but tests would enable the scientists to confirm this more accurately. The fact that its head and trunk had survived was particularly unusual.

"As a rule, the part that thaws out first, especially the trunk, is often eaten by modern predators or birds. Here, for example, even though the forelimbs have already been eaten, the head is remarkably well preserved," Cherpasov told Reuters.

It is the latest of a series of spectacular discoveries in the Russian permafrost. Last month, scientists in the same vast northeastern region - known as Sakha or Yakutia - showed off the 32,000-year-old remains of a tiny sabre-toothed cat cub, while earlier this year a 44,000-year-old wolf carcass was uncovered.