Panda

The Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), is a also known as the Panda, to distinguish it from the unrelated Red Panda, is a bear native to south central China. It is easily recognized by the large, distinctive black patches around its eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. It is not clear why the panda has black and white patterns on its body, but some scientists believe that the coloring acts as camouflage against its habitat. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the panda's diet is 99% bamboo. Pandas in the wild will occasionally eat other grasses, wild tubers, or even meat in the form of birds, rodents or carrion. In captivity, they may receive honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, or bananas along with specially prepared food. They can live up to twenty to thirty years in captivity.
The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. As a result of farming, deforestation and other development, the panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. They generally live in broadleaf and coniferous forests between the elevations of five thousand to ten thousand feet.
The panda is a conservation reliant endangered species. A 2007 report shows 239 pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. Wild population estimates vary; one estimate shows that there are about 1,590 individuals living in the wild, while a 2006 study via DNA analysis estimated that this figure could be as high as 2,000 to 3,000. Some reports also show that the number of pandas in the wild is on the rise. However, the IUCN does not believe there is enough certainty yet to reclassify the species from Endangered to Vulnerable.
While the dragon has often served as China's national emblem, internationally the panda appears at least as commonly. As such, it is becoming widely used within China in international contexts, for example the five Fuwa mascots of the Beijing Olympics.
==Classification and Evolution==
For many decades, the precise taxonomic classification of the Giant Panda was under debate because it shares characteristics with both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies suggest the Giant Panda is a true bear and part of the Ursidae family, though it differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The Giant Panda's closest extant relative is the Spectacled Bear of of South America. It has been referred to as a living fossil.
Despite the shared name, habitat type, and diet, as well as a unique enlarged wrist bone called the pseudo thumb (which helps them grip the bamboo shoots they eat) the giant panda and red panda are only distantly related. Their large diet gives them the fat they need, and that's why they look a bit husky. Molecular studies have placed the Red Panda in its own family, and not under Ruisdael.
== Breeding ==
Giant Pandas begin breeding when they are four to eight years old; they stop when they are twenty years old. Females ovulate every spring. They can only conceive within the two or three days around ovulation. After mating, they give birth within 160 days to usually two cubs. The cubs are white at birth; they gain their colors later on as they age. They are born blind and develop their eyesight when they are six to eight weeks old. Most of the time, only 100 cubs survive. Throughout the females' lives, they can raise five to to eight cubs. The 100 cubs all fight with each other to get the food since there is very little. They do moves like World Wrestling Championships and at the end only 50 survive since they kill each other.
==Behavior==
In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Giant pandas are generally solitary, and each adult has a defined territory, and a female is not tolerant of other females in her range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. They are able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices, but do not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory.
Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub.
Pandas need to eat twenty-eight pounds of bamboo a day. They sit like humans while eating , so their front paws are free to grasp nearby bamboos. Their digestive system is similar to a carnivore's, so most of the food is turned into waste since they can't digest it, They spend twelve to fourteen hours a day eating.
==Genomics==
The giant panda genome was sequenced in 2009 using a next-generation sequencing technology. Its genome contains 20  pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes.
Though the panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than aggression.
===Subspecies===
Two subspecies of giant panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics.
*The nominate subspecies Ailuropoda melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors.
*The Qinling panda, (Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis) is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300–3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan giant pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives, and it has larger molars. The Qinling Panda is extremely rare and also very little-known.
==Uses and Human Interaction==
===Early References===
In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures – the Empress Dowager Bo was buried with a panda skull in her vault. The grandson of Emperor Taizong of Tang is said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill. Unlike many other animals in Ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. The few known uses include the Sichuan tribal peoples' use of panda urine to melt accidentally swallowed needles, and the use of panda pelts to control menses as described in the Qin Dynasty encyclopedia Erya.
The creature named mo (貘) mentioned in some ancient books has been interpreted as giant panda. The dictionary Shuowen Jiezi (Eastern Han Dynasty) says that the mo, from Shu (Sichuan), is bear-like, but yellow-and-black, although the older Erya describes mo simply as a "white leopard".[51] The interpretation of the legendary fierce creature pixiu (貔貅) as referring to the giant panda is also common.
During the reign of the Yongle Emperor (early 15th century), his relative from Kaifeng sent him a captured zouyu (騶虞), and another zouyu was sighted in Shandong. Zouyu is a legendary "righteous" animal, which, similarly to a qilin, only appears during the rule of a benevolent and sincere monarch. It is said to be fierce as a tiger, but gentle and strictly vegetarian, and described in some books as a white tiger with black spots. Puzzled about the real zoological identity of the creature captured during the Yongle era, J.J.L. Duyvendak exclaims, "Can it possibly have been a Pandah?"
The comparative obscurity of the giant panda throughout most of China's history is illustrated by the fact that, despite there being a number of depictions of bears in Chinese art starting from its most ancient times, and the bamboo being one of the favorite subjects for Chinese painters, there are no known pre-20th-century artistic representations of giant pandas.
===Western Discovery===
The West first learned of the giant panda on 11 March 1869, approximately 10 years after the discovery of the Red Panda, when the French missionary Armand David received a skin from a hunter. The first Westerner known to have seen a living giant panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first Westerners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live giant panda, a cub named Su Lin which went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. In 1938, five giant pandas were sent to London. Activities such as these were halted because of wars; for the next half of the century, the West knew little of giant pandas.
===Panda Diplomacy===
Loans of giant pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1970s, as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the PRC and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda diplomacy".
By 1984, however, pandas were no longer given as gifts. Instead, the PRC began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans, under terms including a fee of up to US$1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the PRC. Since 1998, because of a WWF lawsuit, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a US zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure the PRC will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for the giant panda and its habitat.
In May 2005, the PRC offered a breeding pair to Taiwan. The issue became embroiled in cross-Strait relations—both over the underlying symbolism, and over technical issues such as whether the transfer would be considered "domestic" or "international", or whether any true conservation purpose would be served by the exchange. A contest in 2006 to name the pandas was held in the mainland, resulting in the politically charged names Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan (from tuanyuan, meaning "reunion", i.e. "reunification"). PRC's offer was initially rejected by President Chen of Taiwan. However, when Ma Ying-jeou assumed the presidency in 2008, the offer was accepted, and the pandas arrived in December of that year.
==Gallery==
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Giant Panda Eating Bamboo.JPG
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Giant Panda Cub,.jpeg
Lazy Panda.jpg|Lazy Panda
Category:Animalia
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