Berlin Zoo’s twin pandas Leni and Lotti celebrated their second birthday on Friday with a three-tier cake made of frozen vegetable juice.
The sisters curiously sniffed the birthday snack, then licked and nibbled at it, thoroughly dismantling the cake made from beetroot and carrot juice.
In the end, however, the pandas’ favourite food – bamboo – proved more interesting. Together with their mother Meng Meng, they munched away industriously, spattering their white panda fur with beetroot stains.
They received the cake a day before their actual birthday on August 22. On Saturday morning, visitors will be treated to a commentated feeding of the giant pandas.
Leni and Lotti are the second set of panda offspring for Berlin Zoo and for Germany altogether. Some years earlier, Meng Meng gave birth to twins Pit and Paule, who now live in China.
The bears, like their parents, are the property of the People’s Republic of China, which lends the animals to selected countries under a scheme referred to as “panda diplomacy.”
Leni and Lotti will also head to China one day, said mammal curator Florian Sicks.
Veterinarian Franziska Sutter explained that at birth the twins had weighed only around 150 grams, but now weigh almost 60 to 70 kilograms – making them almost as heavy as their mother, who tips the scales at 85 kilos according to the zoo.
The sisters are still being nursed by their mother. In addition to bamboo and mother’s milk, their diet includes special panda biscuits made from various types of flour and sweet potato, according to a Chinese recipe.
In their natural habitat, giant pandas begin to gradually separate from their mothers at the age of 2, according to Sicks. “Pandas are decidedly solitary animals in their natural habitat,” he said.
Leni and Lotti are still getting along extremely well with their mother. The keepers are watching their development very closely and “are very confident that they will also spend their third birthday here at Berlin Zoo,” he said.
Female pandas are only fertile once a year and only for a short time, with a window of at most 72 hours. Breeding the animals is therefore very demanding, and reproductive medicine specialists travel from China especially for the purpose.
The panda twins Leni and Lotti celebrate their second birthday in an enclosure at the Berlin Zoo. (is associated with: «Berlin panda twins celebrate 2nd birthday») Michael Ukas/dpa