<p>The country's newest giant panda cub has a name: Mei Lan.</p><p>The moniker, which officials said means "Atlanta Beauty," was announced Friday during a traditional Chinese naming ceremony at Zoo Atlanta on the cub's 100th day.</p><p>The 12-pound honoree did not make an appearance at the event, which featured traditional Chinese song and dance as well as speeches from dignitaries, but she could be seen by video feed sleeping peacefully in her secluded habitat.</p><p>Zhang Zhihe, director of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China _ where Mei Lan's parents, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, were born _ said the name is fitting for the cub. Mei Lan, pronounced "may-lan," has male overtones, a gift Chinese parents bestow on female children who they want to step outside traditional roles for women, he said.</p><p>"It means her parents want her to be as capable as a boy," Zhihe said. "It is a beautiful name."</p><p>The name was the top vote-getter in an online poll at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Web site. The 10 names included in the poll were chosen by the zoo, local media organizations and residents in the Sichuan Province of China, where the Chengdu facility is based.</p><p>Officials said 57,000 online votes were cast.</p><p>Zheng Zeguang, second in command at the Chinese embassy in the United States, said Mei Lan's naming is a "big day for Chinese-U.S. relations."</p><p>"This is the national treasure of China," Zeguang told the packed auditorium. "The people of China are making unprecedented efforts to preserve this treasure."</p><p>Mei Lan took her first shaky steps this week, an important milestone that means her public debut is just a few weeks away. She will be kept in seclusion until she can walk on her own. Until the debut, panda fans have been keeping up with the cub and her mother, Lun Lun, on the zoo's online panda cam or through live video feed shown on monitors at the zoo's panda habitat.</p><p>The father, Yang Yang, is being kept apart from mother and baby, as is normal in the wild.</p><p>Teacher JoAnne Scigliano, 64, traveled from South Bend, Ind., for Friday's ceremony. She and her fourth-grade class have been keeping track of the panda's growth through videos posted on the zoo's Web site.</p><p>"Its something that touches so many people, but particularly youth because you have a chance to get them in touch with conservation," said Scigliano, who wore a sweat shirt with a picture of a panda on it. "All humanity is so connected to them."</p><p>Her class will be pleased with the name because many of them voted for it in the online poll, she said.</p><p>The 9-year-old Lun Lun gave birth Sept. 6 after a 35-hour labor. This is the fifth giant panda born at a U.S. zoo in the last six years.</p><p>Mei Lan's birth is significant for the breeding research being done in Chengdu, where she will return eventually to help produce more pandas, Zhihe said. Her mother, Lun Lun, was inseminated in March through a new process that aims to get a nearly pure semen sample from the male panda, zoo officials said.</p><p>In the new method, researchers use massage to extract the semen rather than waiting for the panda to produce it on his own.</p><p>After several years of trying, the zoo artificially inseminated Lun Lun at the end of March with semen taken from Yang Yang.</p><p>Zoo President and CEO Dennis Kelly said the zoo hopes to impregnate Lun Lun again in 18 months.</p><p>"This is a happy day along a journey that's going to continue," Kelly said after the ceremony. "We expect more work will be done."</p><p>A panda cub at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., born last summer, also was the product of artificial insemination. There are only 1,600 to 3,000 of the endangered species remaining in the wild today, and another 185 living in captivity.</p><p>Only three other U.S. zoos - San Diego, Memphis and the National Zoo - have pandas. Memphis has not been able to successfully impregnate a panda.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cdf1ec)</p>
