Edinburgh Zoo panda showing ‘positive signs’ of pregnancy

The UK’s only female giant panda is still showing “positive signs” of pregnancy, zoo bosses said as their wait goes on for the arrival of a cub.

Edinburgh Zoo said Tian Tian has started to produce colostrum and is still being monitored “around the clock” by experts.

Panda breeding is not an exact science and it remains “really difficult” to tell if a panda is expecting a cub, the zoo said in a statement.

Tian Tian has been keeping her keepers, and the public, guessing over her possible pregnancy since she was artificially inseminated in April.

In August the zoo said she was showing encouraging signs of pregnancy and she was later placed on 24-hour surveillance, with early expectations that she could give birth in late August or September.

When that did not materialise, the zoo cautioned that any birth could happen two weeks later than previously thought.

Now it remains the case that no one can say for sure whether Tian Tian is pregnant, or, if she is, when she might give birth.

The zoo said it is still possible that she is expecting and it will continue to prepare for a new arrival.