Scotland’s only female giant panda is back entertaining crowds at Edinburgh Zoo, weeks after her pregnancy ended in failure.
Tian Tian, otherwise known as Sweetie, spent hours showing off to visitors at the weekend while male Yang Guang took a break from attention.
Keepers closed Yang Guang’s enclosure to the public to give the 11-year-old panda a “well-earned rest”.
But Tian Tian made up for his temporary absence by posing and appearing to smile to hundreds of visitors while playing among trees and snoozing on a platform in her outdoor home.
Sarah Brown, 22, from Dundee, said: “She looks happy again.”
Tian Tian and Yang Guang – aka Sunshine – arrived on loan from China in December 2011 and are the first giant pandas to live in the UK for 17 years.
Tian Tian was expected to deliver an historic cub after being artificially inseminated in April, but she passed her due date on August 31.
Analysis of the animal’s hormones later revealed she was no longer pregnant and may have reabsorbed the foetus – a common occurrence in giant pandas both in zoos and the wild.
The star attractions have now had three failed attempts at breeding since they arrived in Scotland.
Iain Valentine, director of giant pandas for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, told visitors however: “Don’t give up hope. We will continue and hopefully next year it will all come good and there will be a cub for us all to celebrate.”