Beijing: A giant panda has broken two records in China by giving birth to the heaviest cub born in captivity after the longest period in labour, an exhausting 34 hours, Xinhua news agency said.
Six-year-old Zhang Ka delivered the baby, the second born in captivity in the world this year, on Monday at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Centre in the mountainous southwest.
The cub weighed just 218 gram (half a pound), but still became the heaviest panda ever born in captivity, where most cubs are born weighing between 83 and 190 grams, Xinhua said.
"It is very rare for them to be even near 200 grams," it said.
But the size and the fact that it was Zhang Ka's first child meant a "painstaking and eventful" birth for the mother, who was born in the wild.
"The whole process lasted about 34 hours and was the longest in the history of panda reproduction," Xinhua quoted the head of the Wolong centre, Zhang Hemin, as saying.
The giant panda is one of the world's most exotic and endangered species and is found only in China, where it is a national treasure.
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