'Little Miracle' panda cub makes public debut as National Zoo reopens

His name means "Little Miracle."

Xiao Qi Ji, the Smithsonian National Zoo's newest giant panda cub, made his public debut Friday after being born last August to his mother, Mei ­Xiang, who was considered too old, at age 22, to get pregnant.

Up to now, because of the coronavirus pandemic, fans have only been able to catch a glimpse of the cub playing and snoozing on the zoo's panda cam -- but with the zoo reopening Friday for the first time since last November -- they now can watch him perform outside, likely climbing, rolling around and munching on panda-favorite bamboo.

The cub (his Mandarin name is pronounced SHIAU-chi-ji) weighs about 45 pounds, zookeepers say, a long ways from the tiny, squealing "stick of butter," as cubs are called at birth.

Zoo spokesperson Pamela Baker-Masson said she met visitors Friday from North Carolina and others from Pittsburgh who trekked just to see the giant pandas, in addition to their regulars.

"The panda cub is definitely a star attraction, but overall, the sense that I have from our visitors is that they’re just happy to be able to return to the Zoo, enjoy the time outdoors with their families and see all the animals," Baker-Masson said in a statement to ABC News, noting the zoo's reopening appropriately falls on Endangered Species Day.

"We’ve opened with many safety precautions in place, but it certainly feels like we’re returning to our new normal," she said.

The public got to pick Xiao Qi Ji's name back in November and, as part of a cooperative agreement with China to breed the "vulnerable" species in their native land, he will be returned there when he's 4 years old to join his three siblings: Bei Bei, Bao Bao and Tai Shan.

Until then, to the delight of tens of thousands of tourists, he'll be the zoo's star attraction, and the focus of possibly a million impossibly cute photos.

Maybe even more.

ABC News' Tom Dunlavey contributed to this report.