FEMALE PANDA HEADS OUT OF TOWN FOR HOT DATE

[AussieMark]

Female Panda Heads Out of Town for Hot Date

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Shuan Shuan, one of Mexico's three female giant pandas, embarked on what is hoped will be a voyage of love, bound for a Tokyo zoo where keepers will try to mate her with a Japanese panda stud.
Her hot date is Beijing-born Ling Ling from Tokyo's Ueno Zoo. The 18-year-old male panda has been to Mexico City three times but attempts at reproduction and artificial insemination failed to bear fruit.

Mexico was the first country outside China to successfully breed pandas in captivity.

Shuan Shuan, 16, left Mexico City's Chapultepec Zoo before daybreak in a covered pick-up truck and passed through customs before boarding a commercial Japan Airlines plane.

From the three Mexican-born lady pandas in Chapultepec zoo, Shuan Shuan was chosen to seduce Ling Ling as "she got on best with him" during his last visit, said Rafael Tinajero, the zoo's director.

The two bears showed their mutual attraction with "sounds, markings, by urinating, sniffing and looking at each other. There was interest between them," Tinajero said.