It's Pandamonium as cubs thrill the crowds in China

It's Pandamonium as cubs thrill the crowds in China

Last updated at 22:00pm on 11th February 2007 Comments (11)

Playing to the crowds can be thirsty work – as these panda cubs found when they took a drinks break at a nature reserve in China.

The cubs had been enjoying playtime during a naming ceremony at the Wolong Reserve in Sichuan province. One even took a ride on a blue seesaw.

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Afterwards they were taken to a panda kindergarten where they will spend a year learning how to live in a group.

The pandas became celebrities after staff decided to let the public name them. More than 30,000 visited a website to suggest names.

The most popular – Tao Tao, meaning playful in Mandarin, and Huan Huan, meaning happiness – were given to the two most mischievous cubs.

The 18 cubs were born in captivity to 11 mothers between July and September last year – a record for births in the reserve since China began an artificial breeding programme for pandas in the 1960s.