BERLIN — Berlin’s newest panda twins have celebrated their first birthday with frozen vegetable treats and a candle made out of bamboo shoots.<\/p>\n
The two female cubs<\/a> were born at the Berlin Zoo on Aug. 22 last year, and each was given both a Chinese and a German name<\/a>. Meng Hao and Meng Tian are better known as Leni and Lotti, tributes to Berlin native Marlene Dietrich and the German capital\u2019s Charlottenburg district.<\/p>\n On Friday, the cubs played around and with a large red wooden figure 1. They were given what the zoo called \u201cice marbles\u201d made of beetroot and carrot juice.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The cubs are the second pair of giant pandas<\/a> born in Germany.<\/p>\n The first were their elder brothers Meng Xiang and Meng Yuan, who became far better known by the German names Pit and Paule<\/a>. The cubs were born in August 2019 and were a star attraction in Berlin until they were flown to China<\/a> in late 2023 \u2014 a trip that was contractually agreed from the start but delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n