Russia's first giant panda cub born at Moscow Zoo in August was named Katyusha, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said on Wednesday.
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The name was selected among the votes in a name contest which attracted over 380,000 participants, Sobyanin said on social media, adding that the name Katyusha finally won out.
He disclosed that the four month old panda cub is in good health.
"Katyusha is now four months old, has a lot of teeth and walks very well. She recently had a routine check-up and weighed 8.67 kilograms and was 79.5 centimeters long including the tail," he said.
The birth of a panda is very rare and in order for this to happen, the staff of the Moscow Zoo and their Chinese colleagues had to carry out complex and painstaking work.
According to Chinese tradition, pandas are given a name 100 days after birth. The options were selected together with specialists from the Celestial Empire.
The baby panda was born at the Moscow Zoo on August 24, 2023. The baby was born at dawn, at 4:40 a.m. Zoologists closely observed the behavior of the panda mother, because the cubs are born absolutely helpless, unable to survive without care.
Her mother, Dingding, accepted her offspring and the new inhabitant of the zoo already weighs 5.9 kg, and her height is 60.5 cm.
A female giant panda can get pregnant in just a few days a year, so it's important not to miss this moment: zoologists monitored the hormonal background of the expectant mother, tracked changes in her behavior and appetite.
In addition, the pandas began to get acquainted in advance they changed places in the enclosures so that they left scent marks and studied each other. The animals were then given "dates". Specialists created the most comfortable conditions so that sympathy and interest arose between the pandas.
At the right moment, an expert from the Giant Panda Conservation Research Center arrived from China. He consulted Moscow zoologists, and as a result, a team of specialists managed to help pandas have offspring.
The baby's parents, Ruyi and Ding Ding, moved to the Moscow Zoo in 2019 as part of a program to conserve, protect and research giant pandas. They were transferred to Russia from China for only 15 years. Legally, they and their offspring, like all giant pandas in the world, are the property of China. ■