Photo by The Q

After yesterday’s hot-and-heavy live-tweeted artificial insemination procedure, the world waits with eager anticipation to find out if Mei Xiang, the National Zoo’s female giant panda, was successfully impregnated by a seven-year-old sperm sample drawn from her often unwilling partner Tian Tian.

But at least one researcher isn’t holding his breath, The Washington Post reports. Jon Ballou, a scientist at the zoo, maintains a file with genetic data on the world’s 333 captive giant pandas. And if Tian Tian’s boys can’t swim, Ballou will look through his records to see if there’s a better match out there.

Despite their successful creation of Butterstick, 13-year-old Mei Xiang and 14-year-old Tian Tian are otherwise reproductive disappointments. Mei Xiang’s chances of holding pregnancy after years of failed insemination attempts are probably less than 10 percent, Ballou tells the Post.

And Tian Tian isn’t helping much. He’s a “clueless breeder with flawed technique.” But being a bad lover isn’t Tian Tian’s only hindrance. Of the world’s captive panda population, 27 percent are descended from four “founders”—specimens whose successful breeding habits have lead to their genetic material being “overrepresented” in the larger pool. Tian Tian is one of at least 32 cubs born to one of those founders, a male named Pan Pan, who really gets around:

Pan Pan was captured as a cub in the mid-1980s. “He was a really good natural breeder,” Ballou said. He was bred with many different females, and “a huge proportion of the genes in the population come from him.”

Tian Tian, one of Pan Pan’s many progeny, only has one cub to his name—our beloved Butterstick.

So if Mei Xiang and Tian Tian are no longer viable mates, what should be done with them? Ballou recommends the National Zoo return to sender and get a new pair of giant pandas.

It’s not the worst idea, considering any hope the zoo has of extending its arrangement with China past December 2015 rides on the successful birth of new cubs. Ballou has the information on every captive panda in the world, presumably he could make some magic happen.

However, the Post reports, “It is uncertain whether China, which has dozens of pandas in its reserves, would consent to replacements.”

For now, we guess we’ll just wait on the results of #pandaAI.