22-year-old Mei Xiang gave birth to a healthy cub on August 21, 2020 at the National Zoo in Washington, DC (Credit: Rob Page III / CC BY-SA-3.0/ Creativecommons.org)

Bei Bei's 2019 departure from the Smithsonian's National Zoo, to join the giant panda breeding program in China's Wolong Nature Reserve, left a big void for fans. What made the loss of the adorable cub even more poignant was the belief that his mother, Mei Xiang, was too old to have more offspring. However, on August 21, 2020, the 22-year-old proved experts wrong by giving birth to a healthy cub.