Sunsimiao,China's only captive male Pallas's cat,used to live in Xinin Wildlife Park in Northwest China's Qinghai Province while it was alive. Photo:official Weibo account of Xining Wildlife Park

China's only captive male Pallas's cat, Sunsimiao, died at the age of seven and a half after choking on chicken while eating, according to an obituary released on Monday by Xining Wildlife Park, where Sunsimiao used to live while alive.

Born in 2015, Sunsimiao was rescued from a resident's home in Xining, Northwest China's Qinghai Province, by the Qinghai Wildlife Rescue and Breeding Center in 2015. After artificial rearing and growing up, Sunsimiao has been living in Xining Wildlife Park, and has gradually become the country's most famous and influential Pallas's cat among Chinese netizens.

Sunsimiao together with another Sunshangxiang, another female Pallas's cat rescued in 2019, gave birth to a baby Pallas's cat in 2021, which is the first artificially bred Pallas's cat to survive in China.

Xining Wildlife Park said in Sunsimiao's obituary that  although it had never experienced the vastness of the wild plateau in its life, it has made countless people to understand and pay attention to this species. And it also set up an immortal monument in the study of the artificial breeding of the Pallas's cat.

The park also said in the statement that it would review the incident and reassess the risks in its current breeding management to avoid the same tragedy happening again.