A female panda who has taken a newfound fondness of playing in the water caught the attention of its keepers at the Qinling Giant Panda Research Center in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, as they believed she might be in heat.
Researchers in the center, where a total of 32 giant pandas dwell, are busy monitoring and studying the animals' breeding activities, especially verifying whether the pandas have initiated their estrus cycle.
Giant pandas usually come into estrus from February to May annually, with April being the peak season. To create the best conditions for mating, the keepers must track the precise time of the estrus cycle.