Photo by Mehgan Murphy, courtesy Smithsonian’s National Zoo.The National Zoo got a new male red panda, Tate, from the Cape May Zoo in New Jersey over the weekend. They’ve already introduced him to Shama, the Zoo’s female red panda, and he reportedly “immediately exhibited breeding behavior.” Tate, it seems, is something of a ladies man. A bow-chicka-bow-wow from DCist to you, sir.
The Zoo notes that a birth for this pair would be a big deal, since red pandas are endangered and breed only once a year. Let’s hope they have better luck than the Zoo’s other kind of pandas at managing “competent mating.”