Berlin Zoo celebrates giant panda Jiao Qing's birthday with special gift

BERLIN -- Germany's Berlin Zoo celebrated the birthday of giant panda Jiao Qing on Thursday and invited visitors to watch the black-and-white bear play with his special gift.

Animal keepers gave Jiao Qing a jute sack stuffed with hay and rubbed with scented oils. He was seen playfully rolling in the grass with the sack, enjoying its scent.

"He enjoys it a lot because it's a different smell. So it's something new, something exciting, something to give them food for thought, so to say. So this is something we work with different animals and the pandas do like it, especially Jiao Qing. So this was kind of a little birthday treat for him today," said Philine Hachmeister, spokeswoman of the zoo.

Another giant panda, Meng Meng, celebrated her tenth birthday on July 10. The zoo prepared a delicious ice cream cake made out of beetroot as a gift for the chubby bear.

Meng Meng and Jiao Qing were sent to Berlin in June 2017 from Chengdu, capital city of southwest China's Sichuan Province and home to the majority of the world's giant pandas. To house the cute animals, the Berlin Zoo built a giant panda garden featuring a panda house and a spacious outdoor area.

As the most famous animals at the zoo, Meng Meng and Jiao Qing regularly draw crowds of tourists to catch a glimpse of the furry pandas.