Tiny Panda Twin Dies in Mexico; Tokyo Gets a Cub

MEXICO CITY —  The smaller of the panda twins born here this week died early Thursday, Chapultepec Park Zoo administrator Maria Elen Hoyo said.

Zoo employees had taken turns holding the panda, which was ignored by its mother Ying-Ying when it was born Tuesday afternoon.

Ying-Ying, who has given birth to five offspring at the zoo here, was mothering the older and larger of the twins Wednesday, but Hoyo said the panda “didn’t seem to notice the second,” born two hours and five minutes later.

The smaller cub weighed 2.4 ounces and was 5.6 inches long at birth.

Meanwhile, Tokyo’s first panda cub was born at that city’s Ueno Zoo on Thursday.

Zoo officials said the cub was six to eight inches long and weighed about 3 1/2 ounces.

Katsuichi Nagayama, an official of the Tokyo park department, said the baby born to the zoo’s giant panda Huan Huan is only the eighth born in captivity outside China, the home of the rare mammal.