Home Safari – Lin Red Panda – Cincinnati Zoo

We have a couple of fun things to talk about today. First off, today is Lynn. Happy birthday, Lynn. She's a really good girl. The exciting news is that Lynn is pregnant. She's got eight, no, six. Six litters. She's got eight cubs total. As you can see, they love apples. We're going to show you how we know she's pregnant. We do that by doing an ultrasound. That's why Dr. Curry is here. She's from our crew. She will do the actual ultrasound on our pandas. We'll see if Lynn will come over and actually get on the stand. I've got too many pandas. Who's over there? Follow her. That's part of working with pandas. They're a little kinky. Focus, focus. There we go. We've got Lynn here. Dr. Curry, you can talk about how she does an ultrasound. Sure. What you can see here is our custom-built ultrasound setup. Lynn has been trained over the years to stand and show her belly to us, which makes it easier for us to perform an ultrasound on her belly so we can see if she's possibly pregnant. This is, I think, the sixth pregnancy that we've diagnosed in Lynn. You can see how she stands here like a champ, and she eats her apples or her bananas as a reward for standing so well. What she'll allow us to do is take our ultrasound probe. We can take the ultrasound probe, and usually we'll put a ton of jelly on it in order to better see, get good contact, and see the potential baby. We give her a little touch here, and she lets us rub the ultrasound probe all over her belly. We've taken a few different ultrasound scans of her this year, and we've been able to see a healthy-looking fetus, a healthy-looking baby. We think this baby will probably be born around the end of June, early July, so just a few weeks from now. Lynn is very pregnant in the red panda world. An interesting thing about red panda pregnancies is that they can actually be variable in length. Red pandas can be pregnant from anywhere between 90 and 150 days, so it can be hard to predict when they will actually have their cubs. By tracking Lynn's pregnancy by ultrasound, we can get a better idea of when she'll produce those cubs. And by comparing the measurements that we take to her previous pregnancy measurements, we have a pretty good idea, a pretty good guess that she'll have these cubs about two weeks from now. Yeah, you were spot on. Anybody have any questions? Yeah, we have a couple of questions. To get her to stand that way for the ultrasound. Yes, absolutely. Yes, we do. So, she gets up here, she gets rewarded with the apple. And that's one of her favorite foods. Hi, kiddo. One of her cubs from last year. And Diego wants to know, how many babies can they have at a time? They can have one to four at a time. One to two is average. So, Lynn has had one, she's had two single babies, and then the rest have been doubles. Kristen wants to know, how many babies is she going to have this time? Is she pregnant with just one? We aren't sure. We'll find out when she actually gives birth. It could be one, it could be two, it could be four. We just don't really know right now. It's kind of tough to see all of them. Jackson wants to know, how long is her gestation period? So, it can be anywhere between 90 days and 150 days. Are red pandas related to any other kind of panda? The giant panda is actually a bear. They've done DNA testing, and they're a bear. And these guys are not related to anybody. They're in their own family group called a Luridae. They're the closest family group there is. But, yeah, they are all by themselves. Ezra wants to know, how big are the babies? They're kind of like a kitten. They're like a kitten born. I don't know exactly how tiny that is, but you know what a kitten looks like when they're first born? Very tiny like that. I don't have very good measurements. Cass and Tripp want to know if we've picked any names out. We have not. Gabriel asked about their coloring. Does it help them camouflage? It does. So, the reddish color on them is actually, there's a reddish moth that grows in the trees where they live. So, that camouflages them. Also, the black, dark underbelly, when you look up into a tree, you see the dark branches. So, that dark belly helps, you know, camouflage them that way. Evan wants to know, are they able to make any noises and sounds? They are. They have kind of a chirping, not purring, but chirping sound. A little trill. A little whistling. But that's about it. There's not a lot of vocalization. You don't hear it all the time. We have a little birthday cake for Lynn. She's seven. Oh, and there she is. First one in. Chloe wondered, how long do the babies stay with the mom? They will stay with the mom until the next breeding season. So, almost up for the year. Here, they're with her for a year. But if we place them in another institution, they'll leave sometimes less than a year. But they are fully eating on their own, doing their own thing, well before a year's time. So, these girls are full grown and able to live on their own right now if they wanted to. Sam asked, do they have any predators? Yeah, in the wild, snow leopards and martens. And then human beings, unfortunately. The people, we do hunt them for their fur. And we think they're good pets, but they are not good pets. They are terrible being pets. They don't like being touched or picked up like a cat. You cannot cuddle them. They truly are a wild animal. Mrs. Fagan and Ms. Adams' class are wondering, what is their favorite food? I think it's apple. They do love banana as well, but they really do love apple. So we made them a little birthday cake with apple slices and banana. Laura wants to know, are they friendly to humans? As you see, we're in here with them, so they are in that sense. I mean, if we were to approach one in the wild, they would run away. But these guys were born around, you know, with us. They've been around us their whole lives. We can't, like I said, we can't pick them up or touch them like a cat, but we can work around them. They do have very sharp claws. Like, they were earlier trying to put their paws on me. I was trying to back away because those claws are very sharp. Anthony is wondering, how soft are they? A lot of people say they're coarse. I think they're kind of soft. Not quite as soft as a cat. But I wouldn't say, you know, not a lot coarser than that. But I think they are, they have a softness. Jasper and Esme want to know, what do they use their long tails for? They will use it to kind of balance as they climb. They also wrap it around their face like a scarf in the winter to keep themselves warm. And everyone's asking about the tail, too. Is it a prehensile tail? It is technically not prehensile, but they will use it when they're climbing to kind of grasp a branch, you know, kind of balance themselves as they're climbing. Jordan wants to know if they're endangered. They are endangered. There's less than 2,000 left in the wild. These guys are the scions. They're mainly from China, where the other species is mainly from Nepal, Bhutan, India. But yeah, so there's less than 2,000. They are critically endangered. Liv wants to know, do they spend time with their dad? They can right now. He's not in here with them. Actually, their father, yeah, their father actually lives in San Diego Zoo right now. But we have had males and the father in with the cubs before. That's not a problem. Katie asks, what is their lifespan? They live to mid to late teens. There was one in five. In the wild it's much less than that. But in the captivity, mid to late teens. We have one here, she's 17. Murray wants to know, are they born with stripes on their tails? They are not. When they are born, they have white stripes all over them. So they don't have to be brushed yet. And it's a little teeny tiny tail. But as they start to grow, they start to get that reddish coloration and all that stripes come in as they get a little bigger. Nicole asks, do they have their own personalities? I think they do. Yeah, absolutely. Our two cubs here, Audra and Lenore. Audra is much more bold, much more, you know, will really get out there and try things. She's a little more, where as Lenore is a little skittish, she'll kind of hang back a little more. But yeah, I definitely think they have their own personalities. Lynn is very fun loving. Lots of energy, she always has. She had a famous video many years ago of her and her mother playing in the snow here at the zoo. Rachel wants to know, what's her favorite toy or enrichment? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know if they have a favorite. They like stuff they can climb on. They like things that have food in and they can knock the food out. They're very inquisitive. Yeah, I don't think they have a favorite toy. Rachel wants to know if they can swim. They cannot swim, yeah. They are not swimmers. Libby, do they eat meat? Oh, that is a good question. They are technically carnivores, but they eat primarily bamboo. So, they do catch a small bird over here. They do, but they've been known to catch them. But they do eat primarily bamboo. We feed them leafy, which has all the leaf colors they need. They will eat paper mushroom in the water and bamboo, which makes them unique in the world. Our last question is from Maple. She wants to know if they're nocturnal. They are technically diurnal. So, they're active dawn and dusk. So, they'd be asleep at night. And that's it. We have no more questions. That is it here at the Red Panic Zoo. Thank you guys so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. We've had a lot of fun celebrating Lynn's birthday and her upcoming pregnancy. And hopefully, you know, in the future we'll let you know how many cubs she has.