panda

This fluffy guy is finally old enough to deal with the press. As recently as last month he was taking his first steps. He was only able to be seen on the Panda Cam, where you can still catch him napping or hanging out with his mom. 



Now the national zoo has released footage of Bei Bei being an adorable, confused baby panda with an interview with a panda biologist so the world can know more about this cute, endangered species. 

The panda team at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C. was excited to greet their newest baby panda on the evening of August 22. They were surprised to see that a second cub was born around 10 P.M. that night. It's rare for giant pandas to have twins, in fact this is only the third time that a pair of panda cubs have been born in the United States. 

At the moment the zoo is working to alternate individual time with the panda mother for each cub to make sure she can devote enough attention to each of them. So far Mei Xiang has been adjusting to motherhood well, you can see her immediately picking up and cleaning her second cub in the video below. 

Jia Jia is both the current record holder for oldest panda in captivity and the oldest panda ever in captivity, stealing away the title from the previous owner who lived to be 36-years-old. Pandas tend to live longer in captivity than in the wild so she's quite old by any panda standards. To celebrate, she was given a cake made of ice and vegetables, but she mainly stuck to chewing on bamboo and posing next to it. 

These cuddly baby pandas live together in a special nursury in China dedicated to preserving the endangered giant panda population.