Panda gives birth to twins in western Japan, mother and babies in good condition

TOKYO (AP) - Mei Mei, a giant panda from China, has given birth to twins at a zoo in western Japan, and the mother and babies were in good condition, a zoo official said Sunday.

The baby pandas were born on Saturday at Adventure World in Wakayama and officials have yet to confirm their sex, spokesman Tadashi Ishikawa said.

Although one of the twins weighs only 84 grams, considered to be premature, both babies and Mei Mei were in good health, Ishikawa said.

"I want them to grow up all right,'' Ishikawa said.

Mei Mei, 12, and its partner Eimei,14, are both on loan from China.

China's Xinhua News Agency said that their birth raised the number of artificially bred pandas born this year to a record 30 in a mini-baby boom.

The number of surviving panda cubs born this year is the highest to date, Xinhua said, citing Zhang Zhihe, an expert at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China's southwest.

Ishikawa said, however, that officials could not confirm if the twins were born as a result of natural mating or artificial insemination because both methods were tried on the couple.

Birth in winter is extremely rare for pandas in captive breeding, according to Ishikawa.

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.

Wakayama is 453 kilometers (283 miles) southwest of Tokyo.- AP

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