A panda is born in Atlanta while another baby dies in Japan

Zoo officials said in a release they wanted to more closely watch the tiny, hairless cub - which is the size of a stick of butter - based on the behavior of the cub and its mother, Lun Lun, in the zoo's birthing den.

Zoo spokeswoman Simone Griffin wasn't able to provide further information about the situation but said the video feed has been suspended.

The Panda cub, the gender of which hasn't yet been determined, was born Saturday, just a week before the second birthday of Mei Lan, the zoo's first panda cub.

"You can go to every zoo and see elephants, but you can't go to every zoo and see pandas," said Christy Moonan, whose two children, Mia, 3, and Collin, 5, brought small stuffed panda toys with them to watch the cub on television screens in the zoo's panda habitat.

Three other U.S. zoos house pandas, which are endangered: San Diego, Memphis and Washington, D.C.

The cub was the first panda to be born through artificial insemination in Japan in two decades, raising hopes of future success in breeding the crowd-pleasing but notoriously infertile animals.

But Oji Zoo in the western city of Kobe said the cub was confirmed dead Friday afternoon.

"Zoo officials and veterinarians were monitoring it 24 hours a day, but it ended with a sad result," the zoo said on its website.

The cub was just 25 centimetres (10 inches) long and weighed 100 grammes (3.5 ounces).