have black markings resembling the face of a giant panda on a transparent body. White vessels transverse their bodies like a skeleton, evoking a spooky image of a panda graveyard on the ocean bottom.

Chomping peacefully on a fruitsicle cake in her grassy Washington zoo enclosure Mei Xiang is blissfully unaware that she and a handful of other cute pandas are at the centre of a ferocious ...