World’s oldest panda Xin Xing celebrates her 36th birthday (and that’s 108 years in human age)
- Xin Xing was found as a wild cub in 1982 and is now a great-great-grandmother
- Staff at China’s Chongqing Zoo held a birthday party for the panda this month
- She is ‘the grandmother of all captive pandas’ having produced 114 offspring
- Only three other captive pandas were recorded to have lived longer than her
The world’s oldest panda in captivity has turned 36.
Xin Xing, which has outlived most of her peers by two decades, was treated with a cake made with her favourite foods at the Chongqing Zoo in China earlier this month.
According to the zoo, Xin Xing is about 108 years old in human age.
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Xin Xing was treated with a cake made with bamboo and fruit on her birthday on September 16
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Only three other captive pandas were recorded to have lived longer than Xin Xing: 38-year-old Jia Jia in Hong Kong, 37-year-old Basi in Fujian and 37-year-old Du Du in Wuhan.
But all of them have died, leaving Xin Xing to be the oldest of its kind in the world.
Xin Xing, whose name means ‘a new star’, was found as a wild cub by researchers in Sichuan’s Baoxing County in the summer of 1982.
A year later, she was taken to the Chongqing Zoo where she still lives today.
Apparently, the celebrity panda is ‘the grandmother of all captive pandas’.
During her extremely lengthy life, Xin Xing – now a great-great-grandmother – has produced 114 offspring which have been sent by the Chinese authorities to more than 20 countries around the world, according to Chongqing Zoo.
She is said to be living healthily with a good appetite.
The female panda is the oldest panda in captivity in the world, having reached 36 years old
Keeper made a special moon cake for Xin Xing today to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival
Staff at the Chongqing Zoo celebrated Xin Xing’s birthday on September 16.
They made a colourful birthday cake for her with bamboo, grapes, apples and cherry tomatoes. The base of the cake was made with corn, soy beans, rice and eggs, which could provide good nutrition for the birthday star, according to the zoo.
A spokesperson from the zoo told MailOnline that keepers didn’t know Xin Xing’s exact birthday – due to the fact that she had been found as a wild cub.
However every year, the zoo would hold a birthday party for Xin Xing during the months of July and September.
The zoo also said they had checked the family tree of giant pandas, which includes all pandas in captivity in the world, and they confirmed that Xin Xing is the oldest living panda in the world.
Jia Jia, pictured celebrating her 37th birthday in Hong Kong in 2015, was the world’s longest living captive panda on record. She was euthanised the next year due to deteriorating health
Basi, pictured having her 35th birthday in 2015, lived until the age of 37 at the Strait Panda Research and Exchange Centre in Fuzhou. She died of multiple illnesses in September, 2017
Pandas in the wild have an average lifespan of about 20 years, but those in captivity generally live longer.
The world’s longest living captive panda on record was 38-year-old Jia Jia. The female panda lived in the Hong Kong Ocean Park for 17 years until it was euthanised in October 2016 due to deteriorating health.
Another panda Basi, also a female, lived until the age of 37 at the Strait Panda Research and Exchange Centre in Fuzhou, south-east China. She died of multiple illnesses in September 2017.
Before Basi and Jia Jia, the world’s longest living captive panda was Du Du, which lived in Wuhan and died in 1999 aged 37.
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