Twin panda cubs Lei Lei (left) and Xiao Xiao play together at the Ueno Zoo in Taito Ward, Tokyo, on March 18.
13:15 JST, April 9, 2024
The twin panda cubs at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo are going their separate ways.
Male cub Xiao Xiao and his sister Lei Lei will be given a separate enclosure and exhibition starting next Tuesday, the Tokyo metropolitan government has announced.
According to the zoo, pandas do not form groups in the wild; they separate from their parents between the ages of 1.5 to 2 years to start a solitary life.
The twins were born in June 2021 and were separated from their mother, Shin Shin, in March last year, but were kept together because they got along so well.
However, as they grew up, their play began to become too rough, to the point that there was fear of injury. So the zoo decided to house them in separate rooms in the Panda no Mori (Panda Forest), the breeding and exhibition facility where Shin Shin and the twins’ father, Ri Ri, also reside.
