A little over a month after the pandas Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan arrived in Taiwan, Taipei Zoo officials are preparing to help them reproduce.

The zoo even has a plan to show them videos of pandas mating, Xinhua news agency reported.

Photo taken on Jan. 24, 2009 shows the two pandas, named "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan" (when linked, their names mean "reunion" in Chinese), meet the Taiwan public at the Taipei Zoo in Taipei, southeast China's Taiwan Province. [Xinhua]

Ye Jie-sheng, director of the zoo, said he hoped the pair would produce cubs by next spring.

The zoo has arranged daily training for the pandas to help them increase their physical strength and mutual intimacy.

Food has been hung at the top of climbing facilities to urge them to exercise their rear legs, which play an important role in giant pandas' mating habits, Xinhua said.

Yuan Yuan, the female, has shown some signs of being on heat, but the sexual life between the two should be better after she has matured, officials at the zoo said.

Zookeepers have started collecting the pair's excrement and urine every day to test hormone levels. Tuan Tuan is still very quiet, Ye said.

Pandas are sexually receptive between March and May. But most only show an interest in the opposite sex for one or two days.

The gestation period for a female panda varies between 90 and 160 days, with an average pregnancy lasting 135 days.

The four-year-old bears were first displayed at Taipei zoo last Monday, the first day of the Lunar New Year, after a month-long quarantine period expired.

More than 5,000 people visited them within the first 90 minutes of the opening of the zoo last Monday.