Tian Tian (Photo : National Zoo, Smithsonian Institute)
Pandas are known to be cute animals, so while New Yorkers were freezing in the second-strongest winter storm to hit the region, a panda born in China now living at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington became viral just by playing on the snow.
The zoo posted a video on Saturday morning on Twitter and Facebook with the caption, “Tian Tian woke up this morning to a lot of snow, and he was pretty excited about it,” reported AsiaOne. On Facebook, the video has over 1.2 million hits and was shared by more than 115,000 users. The same video posted on YouTube on the same day now has more than 1.7 million hits, a confirmation that it is a viral video.
The 275-pound male giant panda, whose name means “More and More” in Chinese, was born at the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda, located at Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province. His mother is Yong Ba and father is Pan Pan.
In turn, Tian Tian has sired Tai Shan on July 5, 2005 with Mei Xiang, but the two pandas did not make the male cub the natural way. Because Tian Tian could not get the correct positioning, a problem among giant pandas born in captivity, the zoo had used artificial insemination using Tian Tian’s sperm to get the female panda pregnant.
Tian Tian is just one of four giant pandas that live in The Smithsonian which operates one of the leading panda conservation programs in the world.
Meanwhile, BBC reported that Jeffrey Perez from Maryland, who saw Tian Tian’s viral video, imitated the Chinese panda’s action by putting on a panda suit and rolling around in the snow. However, nothing compares to the original and genuine, since Perez’s video has only about 200 views, although it was just posted on YouTube a few hours ago.
