First glimpse of twin panda cubs just hours after they were born at Chinese research centre

hese pictures show the cute moment two newborn pandas snuggled up together for the first time.

The twin pandas, who are both female, were born to Ke Lin in the early hours of Monday morning at the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Base in south west China.

The tiny cubs are the first set of twin pandas to be born across the world this year

Staff at the research centre said that both baby pandas are healthy, weighing 118 grams and 70 grams respectively.

They added that mother Kei Lin, who is seven, showed a strong maternal instinct, trying to cradle her babies soon after birth.

The pair are currently being kept in an incubator and drink just one millilitre of milk at each feeding.

Huang Xiangming, a breeding expert at the centre, said: ‘Ke Lin’s pregnancy is her first and the process of pregnancy through to delivery has many difficult-to-predict factors.’

Back in 2013, staff at the centre found that Ke Lin, who was five at the time, was refusing to mate and decided to play her videos of other pandas mating.

They then introduced her to two potential mates later that year and in 2014, but Ke Lin failed to get pregnant.

Researchers at the centre then decided to artificially inseminate Ke Lin in January this year and discovered she was pregnant in May, after seeing that she had lost her appetite.

She went into labour in the early hours of Monday morning, before giving birth at 5.10 am. 22nd of June 2015