In something almost impossible to describe, all of us at the Chengdu bear sanctuary have just been witness to an incredible art form dating back 3,000 years.

Guo Yue Ming is one of China's renowned hair engravers - and last week he used a hair from Dick - one of our new bears undergoing removal of his damaged gall bladder - who wouldn't miss one of his hairs loving plucked by our vet nurses in the course of preparing him for surgery.

Using a microscope and the finest of tools, Mr Guo not only carved the characters for “Rescue black bears - Give up using bear bile", but this talented artist also carved JASPER!

I think we all had low expectations at first - acknowledging that this would be an almost impossible feat - but there in front of our eyes, the computer screen flashed up Jasper’s image, with his unmistakable yellow crescent, and our jaws dropped to the floor.

A toothpick lying beside the hair shows just how tiny Mr Guo's "canvas" was:

Kindly giving us the finished result, Mr Guo has allowed us to use this piece of art as a fundraiser to help the bears. And so, with pictures of him and the hair of Jasper, we’ll be thinking of the best way of raising funds for a project so close to the heart of talented and generous people here in China.

We couldn't resist getting a photo of Mr Guo (and our PR manger Rainbow) proudly displaying our tiniest piece of bear art in front of our biggest bear artwork - the statue of Andrew that now greets visitors to our Moon Bear Rescue Centre.