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Atlanta zoo panda gives birth to third cub

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A giant panda gave birth to her third cub Wednesday at Zoo Atlanta under a China-U.S. research program, panda experts in southwest China's Sichuan Province said Thursday.

Lun Lun, 13, gave birth to a healthy cub at Zoo Atlanta. [CRI]

Lun Lun, 13, gave birth to a healthy cub at 5:39 p.m. Wednesday, Beijing time, the Chengdu Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding said on its website.

Panda expert Liu Yuliang used artificial insemination to make Lun Lun pregnant when he visited Zoo Atlanta in June. Liu is a panda expert at the Chengdu base.

"He inseminated Lun Lun with sperm from her partner, Yang Yang, on June 13," it said. "He tried twice, using fresh sperm as well as frozen sperm collected in 2008."

Lun Lun had been on round-the-clock birth watch since Oct. 22, when an ultrasound scan showed her as pregnant.

Unlike clumsy new mothers, Lun Lun cuddled and nursed her baby immediately after birth.

Lun Lun and Yang Yang previously gave birth to Mei Lan in 2006, and Xi Lan in 2008. Mei Lan returned to China earlier this year.

The panda couple flew to Atlanta in Nov. 1999. Both were two years old.

The birth of her third cub was celebrated by panda fans both in China and the States.

"It's exciting," said Ashley Robertson, a U.S. volunteer who has taken a month-long panda keeping job at the Chengdu base.

Robertson said Zoo Atlanta was where she saw giant pandas for the first time. When she's back in the States, she would certainly visit the panda mother and her new cub, she said.

Two other pandas gave birth outside China this year.

Seven-year-old Hua Zuiba, whose name means "cutie lips," gave birth to twins at Madrid Zoo in Spain on Sept. 7.

On Aug. 11, another panda from Chengdu gave birth to male-female twin cubs at Japan's Shirahama Animal Park.