When Zhao Sining, five and a half years old, went to the zoo on Thursday in Jinan, Shandong Province to see the panda Taotao, he found, sadly, that Taotao was not cute and lively any more.

Formerly the world's oldest captive panda, Taotao had become a stuffed specimen in a glass cabinet.

The Jinan Zoo in east China's Shandong Province, together with the Shandong Provincial Wild Animal and Plant Protection Association, named Taotao as the "Ambassador of Harmonious Zoology" on Wednesday, the same day her body went on display.

Taotao died on Feb. 6 of brain thrombosis and a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 36, which is equivalent to 108 human years. The average life expectancy for a wild panda is around 15 years, 25 for a captive panda.

The Jinan zoo still has an 18-year-old panda.

Giant pandas are the world's most endangered species. More than 180 of them live in captivity and 1,590 in the wild, mostly in the mountains of southwest China.

Taotao was sent to the Wolong National Nature Reserve, China's largest sanctuary for giant pandas, for artificial breeding three times. But she failed to become pregnant.

Normally, Taotao would have been buried in the Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve of the northwestern Gansu Province where she was born. In consideration of her influence on the city, Taotao was stuffed and stayed at the zoo, said Ma Zhan, a Jinan zoo official.

Zoo staff and visitors mourned her.

"She was like my child, very gentle and soft. It was a great pity she died. Most of the visitors coming to the zoo were for her," said Zhou Baohui, who had fed Taotao since she came to Jinan in 1994.

"I'm learning to paint. I will paint Taotao and present it to the zoo as a keepsake," said Zhao Sining, a fan of Taotao who came to see her several times a year.

(Xinhua News Agency April 4, 2008)