Qizai is a unique brown-and-white panda who lives in Foping Panda Valley, China. Rescued from Qinling Valley in China, which is the only other place where brown pandas have been spotted, the ...

Qizai, a brown giant panda in captivity who was at the center of the scientific study, is seen on May 28, 2021. Li Yibo/Xinhua/Getty Images. Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter.

Qizai is a 7-year-old brown panda and is believed to be the only one of its kind in the world. He lives at the Foping Panda Valley in China. When he was younger, he was abandoned by his mother and ...

Visitors to the Foping National Nature Reserve animal sanctuary in the Chinese province of Shaanxi know there’s a star attraction waiting: Qizai, the 8-year-old panda who presents with brown and ...

Qizai, a rare brown and white giant panda, is seen at Qinling Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding of Shaanxi Academy of Forestry in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Dec. 4, 2019.

Scientists in China studied the genetics of multiple pandas in the wild and in captivity to understand why some pandas have a brown-and-white coat.

Qizai was first spotted in November 2009 when he was about two months old, in Shaanxi’s Foping National Nature Reserve - one of the country’s two giant panda natural reserves.

Qizai's semen was taken starting in 2017 for artificial breeding, but no offspring have been generated. His semen was used in artificial insemination with four female pandas at the base in 2018.

Experts in China spent months trying to choose a good partner for Qizai, which had never mated before. They finally decided on 18-year-old Zhu Zhu, which had been a mother four times.

Piecing together his family tree, researchers found that Qizai's mother and father were black-and-white pandas, while Qizai's son, born in captivity in 2020, was also born with a black-and-white coat.

Qizai, a brown giant panda in captivity who was at the center of the scientific study, is seen on May 28, 2021. Li Yibo/Xinhua/Getty Images. Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter.