CHINA – Beijing:  A female panda gave birth to twin cubs in southwest China. This astonished many especially the caretakers who had been expecting a single cub ever-since her pregnancy. 
The official News Agency Xinhua reported that the from the twins, the first born was a male panda while the sex of the second born is yet to be known  because the mother would not let it out of her grip after its birth a few days back.
The director of the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center in Sichuan Province, Zhang Zhihe was quoted as saying. The mother and her babies are all well," The director added that the female pandas normally become sexually mature between 4 and 5 years old. They can get pregnant once a year and usually give birth to one or two cubs at a time.

Note: More than 20 pandas were born in captivity in China last year, the report said. The panda is one of the world's rarest animals, with about 1,590 living in the wild in China, mostly in Sichuan and the western province of Shaanxi. Another 180 have been bred in captivity. 

In the Image
The picture shows eight-year-old panda Shu Qing licks one of her twin cubs at the Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu in southwest China's Sichuan province Thursday July 5, 2007. Shu Qing gave birth to twin panda cubs on Thursday, bringing the total number of pandas at the research center to 62.