World’s Oldest Captive Panda Passes Away
The world’s oldest living captive male panda died at the end of last year. Pan Pan was extremely virile and a quarter of all captive pandas can trace their origins back to Pan Pan. The panda is survived by more than 130 direct descendants living in zoos all over the world. Pan Pan’s nick name was “hero father” passed away on Wednesday 28th December in Sichuan Province China said the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Great Panda. By the time he reached 31 years of age, Pan Pan was the equivalent of a 100 year old human.
Extremely virile
Pan Pan was born in the wild back in 1985 and was brought to the facility in Sichuan province at just 2 months old according to a Chinese newspaper report. Pan Pan was well known for both his strength and agility. His most important quality however was his virility which was critical in growing the global population of pandas. The Huaxi City Daily, a Chinese newspaper says that Pan Pan was only one of four males with the ability to engage in natural mating during the late 80’s and early 90’s. He first became a father in 1991 and has since then sired many more direct descendants until old age prevented him from further breeding.
Quarter of all captive pandas can trace their origin back to Pan Pan
As was said earlier, there are now more than 130 pandas in zoos all over the world that can trace their origin back to Pan Pan and it is estimated that a quarter of all captive pandas around the world are from Pan Pan’s lineage. Some notable descendants incline Bai Yun who currently lives at the San Diego Zoo in California as well as Tai Shan and Hua Mei both born in the United States and subsequently returned to China.
Died of cancer
The Panda Research Centre’s official Weibo account stated the grand old panda’s health was deteriorating over the last year as a result of cancer. The illness took its final turn just a few days before Pan Pan passed away. Pan Pan’s death was preceded by the death of the oldest living captive female panda, Jia Jia in Hong Kong earlier in the year.
