Thought this was cute from the Atlanta Zoo:Panda Updates
Friday, April 15
Yesterday, we started ultrasound sessions with Lun Lun again. It's been three years since we have had to do ultrasounds with her, but she is so solid on this behavior, she doesn't even need practice. As soon as she is in the ultrasound training area, she knows what to do. However, the last time she saw the vet, he gave her an anesthetic injection, so she was not too thrilled to see him again. She was suspicious of him and would not take her attention away from him to train. No problem! Pandas are easily won over with food, so we spend most of the training session letting the vet feed her apples and bananas to get in her good graces again. Lun Lun also loves the ultrasound gel, so I suggested to the vet to squeeze some out near her, so she could smell and investigate it. He did. And it was hilarious. Lun Lun smelled the blob of gel and immediately looked at her belly! She sniffed it again and looked at her belly. She did this several times. It was such an amusing and interesting response to the gel. She is so smart! After this reaction, she was ready to lie down in the ultrasound position, so the vet squirted some gel on her belly. He always does this at the beginning of an ultrasound session to let her react to it and get that out of her system before we get down to business. She immediately sat up and sniffed the gel and started rolling around and self-anointing (her typical reaction to the gel). After she finished enjoying the gel, the vet was able to ultrasound her belly. No evidence of a cub yet, of course, but we will continue these sessions for the foreseeable future.
Heather R.
Keeper III, Mammals
Lun Lun