Pan Pan, believed to be the world’s oldest panda with more than 130 descendants, died at the age of 31, officials at the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas told AFP on Thursday.

His descendants reportedly account for a quarter of the world’s captive-bred panda population. Pan Pan, whose name means hope in Chinese, had been suffering from cancer. Known as “hero father”, Pan Pan lived most of his life in captivity after his birth in the Sichuan wilds. Xinhua quoted Tan Chengbin, a keeper at the center, who said, “Pan Pan was the equivalent to about 100 human years.”

Giant pandas are on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened species owing to their low reproductive rate and destruction of habitat. The center’s Twitter post said, “In the past three days, Pan Pan’s condition rapidly deteriorated, losing consciousness and the ability to move and eat.”

The world’s oldest living panda is a 36-year-old female named Basi, Xinhua reported.

The animal, which is a symbol of wildlife conservation efforts, was categorised as endangered before being reassigned to the threatened species category. Recent studies peg the adult giant panda population at 1,864 in the wild, a figure that has risen six times over the decade.