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You can never tell what's on this ultrasound scan

Every mother knows that: the first glance at the ultrasound image is always something indescribable. Seeing or hearing the small heart beating almost takes your breath away.

What can be seen on this ultrasound image?
Photo: Getty Images

This ultrasound image is also something very special, but the background is very different than you might initially think.

It is a panda! And the birth of a panda in captivity is about as common as winning the lottery. In fact, a female panda ovulates just once a year. In order to accurately match this, females are monitored in captivity .

The bear species are loners. In non-wild pandas it is very rare to get pregnant. And because they are so rare, ultrasound is used to monitor pregnancy as much as possible. This is how this ultrasound image was created.

Around 1800 pandas still live in the wild worldwide. Most of them in China and Myanmar . Since 1992, the Chinese government has been protecting the pandas. There are around 40 reserves where pandas can live undisturbed.

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