San Diego's newest Giant Panda cub, reached her 100th day alive today and with that comes a Chinese tradition of presenting the cub with an official name. The ceremony was held at the San Diego Zoo this morning around 11:00 am. Living on the East coast, myself and others awaited anxiously for the announcement of the name on one of the many blogs on flickr. The name was selected from thousands of names submitted by people from all over and hand delivered to the zoo, these names were narrowed down to four by the zoo staff and were then presented online for people to choose. The winner was Zhen Zhen, pronounced Jen Jen and means precious. Some of us are already nicknaming her 'ZZ'.
She was born on August 3, 2007, at the San Diego Zoo. Her mother is Bai Yun and father is Gao Gao. She was conceived by natural mating. Zhen's weight on November 21, 2007 was 13.4 lbs (6.1 kilograms) and her length on November 7, 2007 was 26 inches (66 centimeters). She is still being cared for by Bai Yun in the birthing den, although Bai has taken Zhen out with her a few times into the courtyard to eat boo. You can watch them both live on the live webcam 24 hours a day. Click on image for large size.
