First giant panda maintained outside China

The first giant panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca maintained outside China was Su-Lin, a cub aged approximately nine weeks old when captured alive after being found abandoned in a tree hollow near the Min River of Sichuan Province, China. It was discovered by American explorer Ruth Harkness in 1936 and taken back with her to the USA in December of that year. Thought by Harkness to be a female (hence the name, Su-Lin, she gave it), it was actually a male. The cub was bottle-fed by Harkness and then, in April 1937, sold to Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. He lived there until spring 1938, when he died from choking on a twig according to the official postmortem.

In February 1938, Harkness had brought back from China and introduced to Su-Lin a female panda named Mei-Mei in the hope that they would be companions for one another and possibly even mate and reproduce. Sadly, however, they fought constantly, until they were eventually separated. It later turned out that, just like Su-Lin, Mei-Mei was actually a male. Su-Lin died shortly afterwards, and was replaced in 1939 by another panda, called Mei-Lan.