Panda Patient

COURTESY OF IZW/ZOO BERLIN

BEAR CHECKUP: This panda had a CT scan to check the size of his kidneys.

When veterinarians at Zoo Berlin in Germany examined a giant panda named Jiao Qing last fall, they saw something strange. The animal’s kidneys seemed to be two different sizes. The vets used a medical-imaging machine called a CT scanner to take a closer look. The 110 kilogram (243 pound) panda was sedated so he’d sleep during his trip through the scanner, which created a 3-D picture of the inside of his body. “The scan confirmed our suspicions,” says Dr. Andreas Ochs, the zoo’s head veterinarian. One of Jiao Qing’s kidneys is smaller than the other. Ochs’s team will monitor the organs to make sure they’re working properly.

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