A female giant panda was born at a zoo in Wakayama Prefecture, the western Japan facility's operator said Wednesday, the first new cub born there in about two years.

Mother panda Rauhin, 17, gave birth Tuesday morning at the Adventure World zoo in the town of Shirahama. The cub is only 15.5 centimeters long, weighing 75 grams, and has been placed in an incubator, the zoo said.

[Photo courtesy of Adventure World]

The cub, Rauhin's smallest at birth, is much more diminutive than Yuihin, the last panda born at the zoo. Yuihin weighed 197 grams when born in 2016.

The newborn cub has only been taking shallow breaths and cannot feed from its mother's teat, the zoo said.


[Photo courtesy of Adventure World]

"We are giving her milk with a syringe because her mouth is too small to drink. We have to monitor the situation cautiously," an official said. Zoo staffers are monitoring the cub around the clock.

Around April, Rauhin was seen mating with a male panda named Eimei.

At 25 years of age, Eimei is in his mid-70s in human years, making him the world's oldest male panda in captivity to have successfully produced offspring through natural breeding, according to the zoo.