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San Diego, California - During a 10-day period in October, visitors to the San Diego Zoo's Giant Panda Research Station submitted more than 2,400 names for the Zoo's panda cub. Those suggestions were narrowed down to four and beginning Saturday, November 3 through Sunday, November 11, an online poll will be open for panda fans globally to vote for their favorite name at www.sandiegozoo.org.

Zoo officials asked the community to get involved in picking a name for the now 13-week-old panda cub in appreciation for the public's continued support of the Zoo's panda conservation program.

The female cub will be bestowed the name with the most votes at a naming ceremony on Monday, Nov. 26 at the San Diego Zoo. The ceremony will include a few words from Zoo officials and panda experts and is open to the public with paid admission.

This is the first time the Zoo has given the public an opportunity to be heavily involved in the naming of a giant panda cub from start to finish. In 1999, China named the first cub born at the San Diego Zoo Hua Mei "China USA". The Zoo's panda team named the cub born in 2003 Mei Sheng "born in the USA". While in 2005, a poll with five pre-selected names was posted on the Zoo's Web site for a global vote. Su Lin "a little bit of something very cute" was the winning name.

The 100-acre San Diego Zoo is operated by the not-for-profit Zoological Society of San Diego. The Zoological Society, dedicated to the conservation of endangered species and their habitats, engages in conservation and research work around the globe and is responsible for maintaining accredited horticultural, animal, library, and photo collections. The Zoological Society also manages the 1,800-acre San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park (more than half of which has been set aside as protected native species habitat) and the center for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES). The important conservation and science work of these entities is supported in part by the Foundation for the Zoological Society of San Diego.