Adorable panda cub face plants after falling from stage

This is the adorable moment that a panda cub face planted after falling from a stage in China.

The cub was being shown off as part of a display at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Breeding when disaster struck.

The event was a way to show off the giant panda cubs born at the zoo in 2016.

But this little fella wasn’t a fan of the lime green stage, and managed to fall most un-gracefully onto his face in the mud.

In the photos, staff at the facility are seen helplessly looking on as the animal falls to the ground, before scooping him back up again.

The little panda peeks over the edge - a dangerous idea

The hapless infant was one of 23 giant pandas that were successfully bred at the base earlier this year - an achievement that rarely happens due to the difficulties that pandas often encounter when breeding in captivity.

Earlier this year, two pandas at a base in China’s Sichuan province were poked with a stick in a bid to encourage them to mate.

The unorthodox method was used on a female named Su Shan and a male named Yang Yang, after efforts to play pre-recorded sounds to the pair proved unsuccessful.

Describing the mating process, base director Zhang Guinean said that 15 of the 26 females selected for breeding were successful with their male counterparts.

‘Male captive pandas capable of natural mating are extremely rare, accounting for less than five percent of the whole population’, he said.