A female giant panda gave birth to twins on the early morning of September 18 at the Giant Panda Protection and Research Center located in the Wolong Nature Reserve in south China's Sichuan province.
This has been the sixth time that the giant panda has given birth. Since 1995, the giant panda, coded as No.1 in the center, has given birth to 11 babies among which 10 have survived.
"It has given birth to three twins," said a research fellow with the center. "Last year it became world famous by giving birth to triplets."
"We all call her 'hero mother,'" he added.
The giant panda No. 1 is described as "very strong" and weighs 100 kilograms. On April 1 she copulated with a male giant panda for 23 minutes, and for 16 minutes with another male giant panda the other day, both times much longer than the average mating time of three minutes for giant pandas.
From the beginning of this year the Wolong Nature Reserve has welcomed 11 new giant panda babies, a historic high compared with the previous years.
(People's Daily)
