The BBC or British Broadcasting Corporation is showing a special on the courtship and mating of the Giant Panda tonight at 2100 called Giant panda sex secrets revealed. Not that I care for the title, but the two males pictured here, show some serious injuries to their ears, which could have come from courtship battles. These two are not featured in tonights show, but wanted to show what could be a consequence of these battles. Male Giant Pandas have to battle for the right to mate with a female in the wild. The female panda comes into an 'estrus' period for only a couple of days and she decides who she will mate with. It has been recorded in China that even if a male wins a battle over other males to mate with a particular female, she may still refuse him and go off onto another mountaintop to seek out another male to mate with.
Both males are wild born. Halan who lives in the Wuxi Zoo in China is 24 years old and Gao Gao is around 18 year old and lives at the San Diego Zoo in California.
