If you've ever charted your ovulation to find the perfect time to try "competent mating" you know how nerve-wracking it can be to figure out how all the signs add up.
Imagine being a hopeful panda mom. Pandas are believed to ovulate only once a year, leading to one single day out of roughly 365 on which they might conceive.
After trying to mate for most of last Thursday, the panda couple at the National Zoo were put to sleep so the zoo keepers could help nature along by taking semen directly from male panda, Tian Tian and inserting it directly into female panda, Mei Xiang's uterus.
Now the two-week wait! But, wait. For a panda, that wait is more like 90 to 185 days. Somewhere in there--no one knows for sure--is the proper gestation period for a baby panda. And because pandas are prone to false pregnancies--in which all the signs are there, but a baby is not--all zoo keepers can do is separate the hopeful mom and dad for six months and see if a baby arrives.
I'm hoping right along with them that one does, but I have to say, with a mating routine like that, is it any wonder pandas are such a critically endangered species?
See also: Rare Baby Gorilla Born at the National Zoo
Photo: The National Zoo
