Giant panda to digest cellulose is ascribed to the microbes in its gut. Pandas are born with sterile intestines and require bacteria obtained from their mother's feces to digest vegetation. The giant panda is a "highly specialized" animal with "unique adaptations", and has lived in bamboo forests for millions of years. The average giant panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 lb) of bamboo shoots a day to compensate for the limited energy content of its diet. Ingestion of such a large quantity of material is possible because of the rapid passage of large amounts of indigestible
Tian Tian (female giant panda) 2009. The male cub was named Shen Wei and the female Bo Si. After her arrival at Edinburgh Zoo she had an unsuccessful mating season in 2012. In April 2013 Royal Zoological Society of Scotland performed on her the first artificial insemination procedure on a giant panda in the UK. They later confirm that Tian Tian had become pregnant, but most likely reabsorbed the foetus late term. On 12 August 2014 Iain Valentine, Director of Giant Pandas for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, announced that a second implantation had taken place, she was pregnant and birth was expected around