Even as plenty of the National Zoo’s other animals are efficiently producing adorable offspring, its giant pandas have generated little more than deflated hopes for another Butterstick. One philanthropist is hoping his investment will change that.

Panda sex! Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about it. It’s around this time of the year when we get all excited, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang do their whole “we’re really not into this whole intimacy” thing, then Mei gets loaded up with frozen sperm, only to inevitably disappoint us all when, for yet another year, we get no baby pandas. The National Zoo reveals this afternoon, in great detail, that, oh yes, that time has definitely arrived.

Mei Xiang couldn’t have timed it better if she tried. Just as Washingtonians were preparing to wish our final goodbyes to our beloved Butterstick, Tai Shan’s mom quite surprisingly went into heat yesterday afternoon, and her and ‘Stick’s dad, Tian Tian, wasted little time getting to work, as seen above. We don’t really need to go into the sad details of Butterstick’s imminent departure (sniffle), but there’d hardly be a better present than a new…