A begrudging Mazel Tov from DCist to the city of San Diego is in order, as the Associated Press reports that Bai Yun, the San Diego Zoo’s female panda, is definitely pregnant. Bai Yun has been put on “24-hour birth watch” after officials detected a fetus and fetal heartbeat through ultrasound images on July 18. More tests confirmed the pregnancy and the zoo made an official announcement yesterday. As you’ll no doubt recall, Mei Xiang,…

Woe is all of us this morning, as the National Zoo has officially announced that Mei Xiang is not really pregnant after all. Real panda pregnancies are notoriously difficult to diagnose, and this time, unlike two years ago, the hormonal spike recently tracked in the mama panda was a symptom of a false pregnancy. Sniff. This makes Mei Xiang’s fourth pseudopregnancy. She had three before giving birth to Butterstick (aka Tai Shan), her only cub…

WTOP broke the news last night that the National Zoo suspects its female panda, Mei Xiang, may be pregnant. As you’ll recall, Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated by a donation from San Diego’s nefarious male panda Gao Gao — an event about which we were deeply suspicious at first — but if Gao Gao’s sperm is going to deliver us a new bundle of adorableness to obsessively watch on the PandaCam this year, we suppose…

If you’re anything like us, you’ve been enjoying bimonthly “FONZ Flash” emails from the zoo ever since you coughed up the money for a one-year membership just to get primo Butterstick viewing tickets last summer. It’s nice to hear about upcoming lectures, new exhibits and the comings-and-goings of the animals in the collection. But yesterday’s newsletter contained some… disconcerting news (which we were shocked to find made the rounds last week — without spurring outrage)….