Real talk: you want to know why pandas are so severely endangered? Sure, poachers and other humans encroaching on their habitats is the primary factor, but it’s also partially because pandas are literally the worst at getting pregnant. So when panda would-be-mom Ai Hin showed signs of pregnancy last month, the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Centre in Sichuan, China, excitedly began to make plans to livestream the birth online. I don’t think I need to tell you why that didn’t work out.
Yup, that’s right, Ai Hin wasn’t actually pregnant! Despite her reduced appetite, decreased, mobility, and increased progestin hormone level, the six-year-old panda was very decidedly baby-free.
Most news outlets are running with the presumption that this panda was faking the pregnancy specifically for attention, which isn’t that out of the realm of possibility when you think abut it. After all, pregnant pandas at Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Centre receive around-the-clock care in an air-conditioned facility. Centre worker Wu Kongju also told state news agency Xinhua: “They also receive more buns, fruits, and bamboo, so some clever pandas have used this to their advantage to improve their quality of life.”
However, pandas are actually pretty well known for the occasional pseudopregnancy, which can often be indistinguishable from actual pregnancy due to that pesky progestin surge. The only way to make sure that they were ever actually pregnant (because some fake pregnancies can also be attributed to miscarriages, which pandas are similarly notorious for having) is to constantly be monitoring the inside of their uterus with an ultrasound.
Even stranger? Nobody knows for certain why panda’s bodies do this. Probably to mess with us, I bet. Of course, the San Diego Zoo blog has a different theory:
From an energetic perspective, it doesn’t take much effort to slow down and allow your body to become physiologically primed to gestate a panda fetus. Cubs only grow for about 50 days, which doesn’t require a long-term commitment. And if you are a panda, which only mates once every two to three years while raising a single cub in between, it is important to have that pregnancy “take.” If you miss a year, it’s a big loss to your lifetime reproductive output. When the typical lifespan of a wild panda is no more than 20 years, and a female isn’t fertile until at least 5 years of age, she can only rear about a half dozen cubs in her lifetime. Losing one has a big impact on her overall reproductive success. In the end, it could be as simple as a little cost-benefit math equation: pandas can’t afford to lose the chance to reproduce, and it doesn’t cost them much to be prepared.
In other words, “I’m going to act like I’m pregnant just in case I do get pregnant, because I am terrible at getting pregnant.” Makes sense when you put it that way.
The good news is that the workers at the Research Centre are reasonably sure they can get Ai Hin back on her feet and full of fetuses in no time. Yup, all they need is to get her in an enclosed space with a partner, pop in some panda pornography, and pray to every God that they can think of that the two will figure it out.
Wait… I worry you think I’m kidding. That is actually what they do. They show the pandas video of other pandas successfully mating to remind them how to do it. Take comfort in the knowledge that however bad at sex you might be as a feeble human, you’re not that bad.
(via BuzzFeed, San Diego Zoo)
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