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The pandas would learn how to protect themselves by observing the dog, increasing their chances of survival when they were eventually released into the mountainous wilds of the far western province of Sichuan.

The world's first artificially bred panda to be released, a 5-year-old male named Xiang Xiang, was found dead in the snow early this year after less than 12 months out of captivity.

Scientists believe he fell from a high place after getting into a fight with wild pandas or other animals over food or territory.

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China is now preparing to release a second batch of up to four artificially bred pandas. Many or all would be females, which may be less prone to becoming involved in fights.

Breeding pandas through artificial insemination and introducing them to the wild is an important part of China's efforts to save the species, which is now estimated to number between 1,000 and 2,000 in the wild.

Pandas chosen for release undergo years of training. Adult pandas need to spend up to 16 hours a day foraging and eating bamboo and almost all the remaining time resting or sleeping, making them vulnerable in harsh environments.

To boost captive pandas' low fertility rates and weak sexual desire, China has even resorted to showing them videos of other pandas mating.

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Chris Austin’s fieldwork takes him to some of the most inaccessible places on Earth in the pursuit of knowledge about the diversity of the world’s amphibians and reptiles. He serves as assistant curator of Herpetology and assistant professor of Biological Science at the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Science. This story relates some of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of field work in remote New Guinea.

The myriad habitat zones, packed into an area one-tenth the size of the United States, harbor some of the most diverse and exquisite life on Earth: from kangaroos that live in trees to lizards with green blood.

The diversity of life on the island is so varied it has been called megadiverse and it is so vast and unspoiled it has been identified as one of the world’s five High Biodiversity Wilderness Areas.

One of the mysteries about New Guinea’s megadiversity is that it is thought to be relatively new. The main mountain range that provides the diversity of habitat types is only 5 million years old, a geologic and evolutionary blink of an eye. How the high levels of diversity arose in New Guinea in such a short evolutionary time scale is what I am trying to figure out.

Flying into the jungle

In order to collect data to address this question I led a small expedition into the pristine lowland rainforest area of the Sepik Basin in north central New Guinea. Along with me are CJ Hayden (a PhD student in my laboratory), Chris Dahl (an honors student at the University of Papua New Guinea), and Jim Anaminiato (a researcher at the Papua New Guinea National Museum).

The extremely limited road system in Papua New Guinea means that we flew to our destination. I chartered a little single engine Cessna to fly us into a small grass airstrip near the Gedik river, a northern tributary of the Sepik river. The Sepik is the longest river on the island and possibly the largest uncontaminated drainage system in Australasia with a catchment of approximately 30,900 square miles (80,000 square kilometers).

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At this location we conducted a survey of amphibians and reptiles, identifying what species occur in this part of the island as well as trying to discover species new to science. We collected genetic material that we will use to examine fine-scale patterns to better understand the underlying processes that have been responsible for generating so much diversity in such a short biological time scale.

Working day and night

Herpetological fieldwork is neverending. We worked in the day collecting lizards and snakes and we worked by night collecting frogs.

Frog collections and identifications add an additional level of difficulty. Many frog species are distinguished by male mating calls. Therefore, working on frogs requires extreme patience and stealth as well as specialized recording equipment in order to collect, identify, and describe frogs. With the help of Tano, the village elder, and many eager young men to help us in the field, we conducted a survey of the primary rainforest that surrounds the village.

Our expedition has been a great success. In about two weeks we documented 79 species of snakes, lizards, and frogs representing 40 genera from 11 families. This includes at least 10 species I believe are new to science. In addition to our scientific pursuits I’m very interested in the conservation of the fauna and flora of this wonderful island.

At the end of the field season, complications arose for our scheduled airplane pick up. Via a static filled satellite phone conversation with our airbase I learned the plane was in need of repair to its single propeller and we could either choose to leave two days early or wait two weeks until the small Cessna would be back from repair. Through static filled Aussie idiom, the expatriate pilot assures me that the propeller is ‘quite functional’. Given that our survey work was close to complete I decided for the group to leave two days early on the shoddy propeller.

The 4-month-old's public premiere "went very well," Zoo spokesman Andrew Circo said. "We weren't sure how much interest there'd be, since we have four pandas," he said. "But a lot of people came out to see her."

Since her birth on Aug. 3, Zhen Zhen, whose name means "precious" in Chinese, has been living in a den out of the public view. Zhen Zhen, however, has been visible to the world via camera on the zoo's Web site.

Zhen Zhen will have two hours of public playtime daily during her first week, Circo said.

The cub will spend more time outside as her stamina increases, said Kathy Hawk, the zoo's senior panda keeper. As she gets older, she'll start spending nights outside if zookeepers can't lure her down from her tree perches when it gets dark.

On Friday, as Zhen Zhen was introduced to the media, the cub appeared unperturbed by visitors oohing and aahing. But Hawk said the amount of time Zhen Zhen spends in the public eye will depend on her mother's response.

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"She takes her cues from her mother," Hawk said, "so as long as Bai Yun is fine, she'll be fine."

Zhen Zhen could be spotted Saturday afternoon via Web cam doing what any 4-month-old would do after an exciting morning — taking a nap.

Scientists have long known that whales had ancestors that walked on land. Now a team lead by Hans Thewissen of Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy have pieced together a series of intermediate fossils that trace the whale's evolutionary journey from land to sea.

Thewissen and his team studied the structure and composition of hundreds of fossils of Indohyus, which is part of the larger group known as raoellids. Raoellids lived at about the same time as the earliest whales -- about 50 million years ago.

Thewissen's team found key similarities in the skull and ear that suggest a link to cetaceans, a family that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Indohyus, for example, had an outside layer that was much thicker than similarly sized mammals.

This is something typically seen in slow-wading mammals. They found further evidence in the chemical make-up of Indohyus' teeth, which resembled those of other aquatic animals.

This suggests the small, stocky Indohyus spent a lot of time in the water.

Scientists had assumed whales descended from land-dwelling carnivores, and made their way to sea to feed on fish.

"Clearly, this is not the case. Indohyus is a plant eater, and clearly is aquatic," Thewissen said in a statement.

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The researchers believe Indohyus gradually spent more time in the water, either for protection or while feeding, and the dietary shift came later.

"Cetaceans originated from an Indohyus-like ancestor and switched to a diet of aquatic prey," the researchers wrote.

Theories about the evolution of whales have been evolving themselves, and it may take years before there is a consensus.