Lady panda unveils teeny-tiny penis

In news that was tailor-made for me to write about, Mei Lan, a "female" panda born at Zoo Atlanta in 2006, has a dick.

Says the AJC ...
Mei Lan departed Atlanta in February 2010 for the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China. Though the panda — whose name means “Atlanta Beauty” — was determined to be a female by staff at Zoo Atlanta and a representative from Chengdu 19 days after birth, the staff at Chengdu recently noticed the appearance of male reproductive organs.

So, listen. You're probably wondering how a panda can run around for five years with no pants on without SOME zoological person "noticing" she has a wiener. I did a little research, and here's how: Pandas have really, really small penises. How EmBEARassing for them (we have fun). Here. This headline from The Sun, which paraphrases Sir David Attenborough, sums it up nicely. The photo sums my life up nicely:

My favorite line from the AJC article: "Dr. Rebecca Snyder, curator of mammals at Zoo Atlanta said that the panda would have gone to Chengdu regardless and will still be bred — but now he’ll eventually be a daddy instead of a mommy."

Thank you. For explaining this like we're four year olds who don't quite understand where babies come from.