The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is an endemic species in China. The term “giant panda” is often used to distinguish it from the red panda, a neighboring musteloid. The giant panda has regularly served as China’s national symbol, featuring on Chinese Panda gold coins since 1982, and as one of the five Fuwa mascots of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Appearance Of Giant Pandas
The giant pandas is a medium-length to large bear with a large head, small eyes, a long snout, a large nose, and a short tail. It has large jaws with strong muscles and, together with its flat molars, is capable of holding leaves and bamboo stems. Its thick fur is creamy white with large black spots on the shoulders, ears, and nose, with exceptional black spots around the eyes. An extension of its wrist bone, which serves as a thumb, enables it to grasp bamboo stems. Giant pandas live in many mountainous areas of China, in the important provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu. They live in montane forests and mixed forests, where there is a thick bamboo undergrowth.
Habits and lifestyle
Giant pandas are terrestrial animals, although they can climb and take refuge in hollow trees or rock crevices, but they do not build permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate.
Their territory is marked by tree scratch marks and scent gland secretions, and they lead an isolated life. They spend 12 to 15 hours a day chewing bamboo while sitting with their front paws gripping the plants. Giant pandas are crepuscular and are active twice a day, at dawn and dusk.
They consume up to 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 lb) of bamboo shoots per day and can travel between specific habitats if they need to, allowing them to get the nutrients they need and balance their diet for reproduction. Pandas communicate by vocalization and can swim.
Diet and nutrition
Big pandas are herbivores (folivores) and, in the wild, eat 99 percent bamboo. In addition, eggs, fish, and meat are available as supplementary options.
Big pandas are polygamous and breed between March and May. The female attracts a male through a series of bleats and moans. Gestation lasts about five months, then the female gives birth in a cave or at the base of a hollow tree to one or two cubs. Cubs are born blind and toothless and weigh only 90 to 130 grams, or about 1/800th the weight of the mother.
Cubs live in a den until they are 6 months old, while they can trot alongside their mother. They are weaned at about a year old but live with their mother for another 6 months. Some cubs do not leave their mother for several years until she becomes pregnant again. Giant pandas reach reproductive maturity between 4 and 8 years of age.
Population
Threats to the population
Humans are the greatest threat to these animals living in the Chinese mountains, having hunted them for their fur. They are in great danger due to habitat loss from deforestation and land clearing. In addition, climate change kills bamboo, 99% of a panda’s diet.
Population range
The giant panda is classified as vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List website and its numbers are currently increasing. Approximately 1,800 individuals remain in the wild. More than 300 live in breeding facilities and zoos, usually in China. Ecological niche
The giant panda is closely related to the abundance of bamboo and vice versa. They help distribute bamboo seeds and panda-covered areas have been installed on-site to help protect local ecosystems.
Fun news for kids
Giant pandas can see perfectly at night, as they have the same type of pupils as cats.
Large pandas move extremely slowly and cannot do anything that requires a lot of strength because bamboo does not provide them with enough strength.
The first panda cub arrived in the US in 1936, for a zoo in Chicago. It was not until 50 years later that a second arrived in this country.
Pandas do not rely on visual memory but on their spatial memory.
Chi-Chi, a giant panda who arrived at the London Zoo in 1961, at the same time that the WWF was being formed, became the inspiration for the WWF logo.
Pandas are certainly one of the few animals whose body components have escaped being used by the Chinese in traditional medicine.
Pandas have long symbolized peace in China. Thousands of years ago, the Chinese would raise a flag of truce with a panda depicted on it.
Pandas have been around for about 2 to 3 million years.
The name “panda” may also come from the Nepalese “poonya,” meaning “plant-eating animal” or “bamboo-eating animal.”
Underneath its black fur, the giant panda’s skin is black and red, while it is white.