Giant Panda Lun Lun (R) with her cub Mei Lan who was born on September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta in 2007.
In case sleeping with one eye open so you don’t miss the impending royal baby birth across the pond (reportedly due today) is not really your thing, you can nestle with your laptop and stream live footage inside a panda’s cage as part of Giant Panda Birthwatch 2013. Zoo Atlanta is allowing the public to take a peek into the life of a very pregnant giant panda as it looks to welcome it’s fourth cub from mother Lun Lun, who was artificially inseminated in March of this year.
The footage, provided by EarthCam, will alert keepers when the panda goes into labor and allow zoo officials to monitor the post-birth conditions: panda moms are about 900 times the size of their cubs, according to the zoo, and may sometimes inadvertently endanger their cub. The newborn is expected to stay with its mother for one and half to three years until they mature and become solitary animals.
This is the fourth cub for the 15-year-old mother, but other panda moms haven’t been as prolific: At Washington D.C.’s National Zoo, giant panda Mei Xiang suffered five failed pregnancies and an impending deportation to China before she successfully birthed a second cub.