Sweetie claims the star prize
( but her table manners ) really take the biscuit
GIVEN her name, it should come as no surprise that Scotland’s only female giant panda has a sweet tooth.
Yesterday Tian Tian, who is otherwise known as Sweetie, was presented with a special Christmas cake packed full of her favourite treats.
To celebrate the start of the holidays on her outdoor platform at Edinburgh Zoo, she tucked in to the cake made of soya and rice powder, egg and honey, topped with a Christmas star made from carrot, Tian Tian’s favourite snack.
Carefully sniffing out the cake, the hungry panda then greedily snatched the carrot star off the top of the tree before licking off honey drizzled over the tasty morsel.
The special panda cake recipe was provided by the zoo’s colleagues in China, as it serves to supplement a vital part of the giant panda’s natural diet.
Tian Tian and her partner Yang Guang – also known as Sunshine – have lived at the zoo since December 2011 and are part of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s t en- year giant panda partnership with China.
Tian Tian was expected to deliver a cub this year, after being artificially inseminated in April, but passed her due date on August 31. Later analysis of the panda’s hormones showed that she was no longer pregnant and may have ‘reabsorbed’ the foetus.
The animals have now had three failed attempts at breeding since they arrived in Scotland.