Unlikely Wet Nurse for Taiyuan Red Panda Cubs
July 20, 2009
How's this for a double take? These two Red Panda Cubs were abandoned at birth by their mother, and since have been nursed by a mother dog. The pair was born June 25th at north China's Taiyuan Zoo and are doing well thanks to their surrogate Mom.
"Mom" takes the cubs in as her own.
"Their mother, the first lesser panda bred at the zoo, was taken in from a nature reserve in the northwestern Shaanxi Province at the end of April. No one knew she was pregnant. Her plump body and bushy hair disguised her protruding belly until the babies were born," said zoo worker Ha Guo Jiang.