Twin Pandas Celebrate First Birthday At Zoo With Festive Cake Made From Favorite Fruits And Veggies

Sep 03, 2020 by apost team

Twin giant pandas Pit and Paule celebrated their first birthday at the Berlin Zoo on Monday.

Everyone loves a birthday party. This is especially true when it's a first birthday party. Read on to find out how the family made this momentous occasion even more special.

The first thing about this party that makes it extra special is that it's for twin giant pandas. These twins, named Paule and Pit, currently reside at the Berlin Zoo with their parents. Meng Meng is their mother, and Jiao Qing is their father.

Although the twins have not yet reached the adult weight range of 220 to 330 pounds, they are no featherweights. The pair currently checks in at roughly 61 pounds each. This represents tremendous growth from their birth weight of just one-half pound each.

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Even though half of all panda births are twin births, only a small fraction of these animals live to adulthood. This is because panda mothers in the wild will typically abandon one of her panda cubs to focus on raising the stronger sibling, according to BBC Earth. There's no shortage of resources in captivity, so she was able to raise both of them.

Insider explains that his delightful duo will one day return to their ancestral homeland, China. Until then, they're enjoying learning and growing in Germany. The Berlin Zoo pays China an annual conservation fee for the privilege of watching these beloved guests.

Now that these charming cubs have hit the one year mark, they're celebrating by doing one of their favorite things — eating! Zookeepers created a special cake to mark this occasion. After all, these two-toned twins need all the calories they can get to quadruple their weight in the next few years.

Zoo staff carefully selected the twins' favorite foods, blended them, and froze them into a cake they knew the cubs would love. The custom-made confection includes apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, beetroot, and bamboo. This singular sensation of creation is shaped like the number "1" as a tribute to the twins' first year.

While a fruit and vegetable cake might not be your ideal party food, there's so much to celebrate with these twins. What do you think of this birthday celebration? Perhaps you have a special animal in your life who you treat to a favorite food or two on their birthday. Leave a comment in honor of large and small animal birthdays.