Endangered Siberian tigers number less than 500 in the wild. Zoos are working to keep the species alive, including through artificial insemination.

Mei Xiang was inseminated with sperm from two pandas.

The National Zoo conducted an artificial inseminatiom procedure on the female giant panda Mei Xiang, the first attempt to get her pregnant since the death last September of a week-old cub.

Spring is moving in (slowly), the cherry blossoms are sprouting, and everyone is shaking off their winter habits. At the National Zoo, that means one thing: Panda sex time!

What did it take for the National Zoo’s Mei Xiang to produce a panda cub? A great sperm sample and perfect timing.

After yesterday’s 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. If not, it might be time to trade in.

The National Zoo went there: in a stroke of social media brilliance, it live-tweeted Mei Xiang’s artificial insemination this afternoon. The results were both awesome and awkward.

Photo by Daniel.Techie{TaiShan~4 Ever} @ 127.0.0.1 As part of its ongoing efforts to breed a new panda cub, the National Zoo artificially inseminated Mei Xiang back in January (but only after they let Tian Tian have a go at doing it the old fashioned way). Today zoo officials say they have detected a rise in Mei’s progestagen levels, which means we’re now just 40 to 50 days away from discovering whether it worked. At…