This sensational footage shows a giant panda giving birth to her cub at a Japanese zoo - making a normally traumatic process look easy.

Twelve-year-old Tan Tan delivered the 25cm-long cub with apparent ease, popping her young out in one go.

Following the birth, which happened at 3.46pm on Tuesday at Kobe Municipal Oji Zoo in Nada-Ku, the mother set about giving her newborn a good clean.

At one hair-raising point in the film the giant panda gets up and looks close to standing on her little addition - but disaster is averted and she returns to her maternal duties by giving the 100g bundle another lick or two.

The panda is the first to be successfully bred in Japan through artificial insemination in two decades and it is the first time a panda has given birth at the zoo.

Zoo workers are still to determine the sex of the new arrival and are inviting the public to give it a name.

Oji Zoo carried out artificial insemination between Tan Tan and 12-year-old male giant panda Ko Ko between April and May.

Late last month, she began to show signs of being pregnant.

The zoo has leased the two giant pandas from China for $1million a year under a contract that expires in 2010, and the zoo is required to give the baby to China within the next 18 months.

This is only the fourth time that a giant panda has given birth through artificial insemination in Japan since the first case at Ueno Zoological Gardens in 1988.