WASHINGTON -- Mei Xiang looked surprised, perhaps a bit put off by the shrill cries from the first giant panda cub born at the National Zoo in 16 years.

Within a few minutes, however, the first-time mother was licking and caring for her cub, so fragile that zoo officials had yet to determine its gender or inspect it.

"Mei Xiang is the poster child for a wonderful mom," Dr. Suzan Murray, the zoo's chief veterinarian, said yesterday at a news conference hours after the overnight birth of the cub conceived through artificial insemination.

Zoo officials hope that the cub will fare better than the five previous ones born at the zoo since 1983. All died within days.

Their parents -- the now-deceased Hsing-Hsing and his female partner, Ling-Ling -- were gifts from the Chinese government in 1972 and the original source of the capital's panda fever.

Cubs typically weigh only 3 ounces to 5 ounces and are about the size of a stick of butter.

The public will have to wait at least three months to see mother and cub, who will remain indoors at the panda exhibit area.

Until then the zoo's Web cam -- expected to be accessible online at nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas beginning this morning -- will provide the only public view of the two.

The father -- Tian Tian -- is expected to continue roaming outdoors in the morning and returning to the air-conditioned enclosure during the day's warmer hours.

Mei Xiang, 6, and Tian Tian, 7, are about half as old and in better health than Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing were when they were conceiving.

That made zoo officials hopeful the new cub would become the third giant panda to survive into adulthood in the United States. The others were born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999 and 2003.

Giant pandas are rare. Their existence is threatened by loss of habitat, poaching and a low birth rate. As few as 1,600 live in the mountain forests of central China. An additional 120 are in breeding facilities and zoos in China. About 20 pandas live in zoos outside their native land.

Few capital celebrities are as popular and closely watched as Mei Xiang and Tian Tian. They came to the National Zoo in late 2000, on loan for 10 years from the Chinese government in exchange for $10 million raised through private donations to benefit conservation projects.

Their cub will be turned over to China after it reaches age 2, per the loan agreement, the zoo said. Following tradition, Chinese officials probably will name the cub after it reaches 100 days old.

By then, the cub will probably weigh 30 pounds and be covered with fluffy fur, crawling and exploring at "that very, very cute stage," Murray said.