The birth brings the number of newborn, artificially-bred pandas to 12 so far this year but the delivery was not without drama.

The eight-year-old mother, "Princess," had a difficult and dangerous delivery as the cub's feet came out of the mother's body first, unlike the normal deliveries for most female pandas, said Li Desheng, deputy director with the Wolong Giant Panda Research and Protection Center in Sichuan Province, on Tuesday.

"It scared all the staff present. It is very rare and dangerous for giant pandas to give birth to cubs in the reverse way," Li said.

"But judging from its appearance and its crying, the cub has developed well and the mother is safe too," he said.

However, the gender and weight of the cub is still unknown as "Princess" has not yet released the cub from her arms.

"Princess is a young, experienced and heroic mother in Wolong center as she has given birth to six babies in four deliveries in the past four years, with all the cubs surviving, Li said.

Within the last month, seven panda cubs have been born in China. Qi Zhen and Qi Yuan, twin giant pandas at the Chengdu Giant Panda Reproduction and Research Center in Sichuan, each gave birth to twins on August 6 and 7.

A 13-year-old panda named Eryatou, meaning "second girl" in Chinese, gave birth to a 130-gram female cub after 123 days of pregnancy on August 13, also in the Chengdu center.

In the Wolong center, another two panda cubs were born on June 22 and August 7.

More than 30 female pandas across the country have mated this year and eight of them have given birth to 12 cubs, including four sets of twins, said Zhang Zhihe, head of the Chengdu center.

The giant panda, found only in China, is one of the world's most endangered species.

Experts had previously estimated there were 1,590 giant pandas living in the wild in China, but Chinese and British scientists announced in June that there could be as many as 3,000 after a survey used a new method to profile DNA from giant panda faeces.

The State Forestry Administration said there are over 180 giant pandas living in captivity on the Chinese mainland.