Surviving Panda Cub At National Zoo Is Male, Fathered By Tian Tian

It's a boy, said the National Zoo. Mei Xiang's surviving panda cub is male.

"I'm happy to say the results were very clear," said Dr. Robert Fleischer, the head of the Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics who performed the genetic testing to determine the sex, according to abcnews.

Veterinarians conducted genetic testing with swabs taken from his mouth, and found two facts: that he is male, and secondly, his father is the National Zoo's Tian Tian, according to ABC News.

Mei Xiang has been artificially inseminated with frozen sperm from Hui Hui, a panda in China, and fresh sperm from Tian Tian, but the father was not clear.

His fraternal twin, though, is dead most probably due to pneumonia after inhaling food material. He had been bottle and tube fed, which is how food entered his lungs, it's likely that's what caused the food to enter his lungs, according to hngn.

The zoo usually waits 100 days before naming their pandas. So far they have not given him a name.

Check out his growth in real time by following the National Zoo's panda cam.