By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The Beauval Zoo in France has announced the birth of female twins from a giant panda on loan to France from China.
The Zoo in central France said in a statement on Monday that the twins were born shortly after 1am local time (23:00 GMT). They weigh 149 and 129 grams (5.3 and 4.6 ounces).
According to Aljazeera their mother Huan Huan and father Yuan Zi are at Beauval on a 10-year loan from China aimed at highlighting good ties with France.
The zoo said the sex of the cubs was determined by the Chinese experts taking care of them but would need to be definitively confirmed since external genitalia does not appear until they are several months old.
The birth comes after the zoo, which is 225km (140 miles) south of Paris, announced with great joy in March that Huan Huan and Yuan Zi had “mated eight times”.
However, the twins are their second and third cubs after the first panda ever born in France, Yuan Meng, in 2017.
Veterinarians then carried out artificial insemination “to have as much chance as possible” to see a pregnancy.
Giant pandas have difficulty breeding and their pregnancies are notoriously difficult to follow.
“We just lived a moment of rare intensity. These births are always very exceptional but they also bring some surprises,” said Delphine Delord, director of the Beauval Zoo.
The cubs will not be named before 100 days. They will spend a few years in France before being sent to China, the zoo said.
Other nations in Europe also have giant pandas, including Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Finland and the United Kingdom.
