World’s oldest panda Pan Pan dies in China

Pan Pan, the world’s oldest male panda who was living with cancer died on Wednesday aged 31 in China’s Sichuan Province.

An autopsy is being carried out to find the cause of his death, though the circumstances are not thought to be suspicious, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

“Pan Pan was the equivalent to about 100 human years, but he had been living with cancer and his health had deteriorated in the past three days,” Tan Chengbin, a keeper with the Dujiangyan base of the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Panda said.

“He had lost consciousness,” Tan said.  Though born in the wild in Sichuan’s Baoxing County in 1985, Pan Pan lived in captivity from just a few months old.