Berlin’s newest panda twins, Leni and Lotti, celebrate their 1st birthday

BERLIN — Berlin’s newest panda twins have celebrated their first birthday with frozen vegetable treats and a candle made out of bamboo shoots.

The two female cubs were born at the Berlin Zoo on Aug. 22 last year, and each was given both a Chinese and a German name. Meng Hao and Meng Tian are better known as Leni and Lotti, tributes to Berlin native Marlene Dietrich and the German capital’s Charlottenburg district.

On Friday, the cubs played around and with a large red wooden figure 1. They were given what the zoo called “ice marbles” made of beetroot and carrot juice.

The young pandas, who weighed under 200 grams (7 ounces) at birth, now weigh in at about 21 kilos (46 pounds) each. Their keepers are already noticing character differences: the zoo says Lotti is the more daring of the duo, while Leni is often more laidback.

The cubs are the second pair of giant pandas born in Germany.

The first were their elder brothers Meng Xiang and Meng Yuan, who became far better known by the German names Pit and Paule. The cubs were born in August 2019 and were a star attraction in Berlin until they were flown to China in late 2023 — a trip that was contractually agreed from the start but delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

All are the offspring of mother Meng Meng and father Jiao Qing, who arrived in Berlin in 2017.