Giant Panda

## Description

The Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is a bear species endemic to China. The name "giant panda" is sometimes used to distinguish it from the Red panda, a neighboring musteloid. The Giant panda has often served as China's national symbol, appeared on Chinese Gold Panda coins since 1982, and as one of the five Fuwa mascots of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

## Appearance

The Giant panda is a bear of medium to large size with a large head, small eyes, long muzzle, large nose, and short tail. It has large jaws with strong muscles, and together with its flat molars, it is able to crush bamboo leaves and stems. Its thick fur is creamy-white with big black patches on its shoulders, ears, and nose, with distinctive black patches around its eyes. An extension of its wrist bone, which serves as a thumb, enables them to grip bamboo stems.

## Distribution

Giant pandas live in several mountain ranges in China, in the central provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu. They inhabit montane forests and mixed forests, where there is a thick understory of bamboo.

## Lifestyle

Giant pandas are terrestrial animals although 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. They are solitary, occupying a territory that they mark with secretions from their scent glands and by scratch marks on trees. They spend 12 to 15 hours a day chewing bamboo while sitting down with their front paws holding onto the plants. Giant pandas are crepuscular, being active twice a day, at dawn and dusk. They eat as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 lb) of bamboo shoots a day and will travel between different habitats if they need to, so they can get the nutrients that they need and to balance their diet for reproduction. Pandas communicate through vocalization and can swim.

## Diet

Giant pandas are herbivores (folivores) and in the wild, they eat 99 percent bamboo. They may also eat meat, fish, and eggs when available.

## Reproduction

Giant pandas are polygynous, breeding between March and May. The female attracts a male through a series of bleats and groans. Gestation lasts about 5 months, then the female gives birth in a cave or base of a hollow tree to 1 or 2 cubs. Cubs are born blind and toothless, weighing only 90 to 130 grams, or about 1/800th of the mother's weight. Cubs will stay in a den until 6 months of age when they are able to trot alongside their mother. They are weaned at about a year old but stay with their mother for another 6 months. Some cubs may not leave the mother for several years until she falls pregnant again. Giant pandas become reproductively mature between 4 and 8 years old.

## Population

### Population threats

Humans are the biggest threat to these animals living in the Chinese mountains because they have hunted them for their fur. They are under extreme threat due to habitat loss from deforestation and land clearance. Furthermore, climate change kills bamboo, 99% of a panda's diet.

### Population number

The Giant panda is classified as Vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List site and its numbers today are increasing. About 1,800 individuals remain in the wild. Over 300 live in breeding centers and zoos, mostly in China.

### Ecological niche

The Giant panda is closely connected to the abundance of bamboo and vice versa. They help to distribute bamboo seeds and panda-protected areas have been put in place to help protect native ecosystems.

## Fun Facts

Giant pandas can see clearly at night, having the same sorts of pupils as cats.

Giant pandas move extremely slowly and can't do anything that takes much energy because bamboo doesn't give them much energy.

The first panda cub arrived in the United States in 1936, for a zoo in Chicago. Not for another 50 years did a second one arrive in this country.

Pandas don't rely on visual memory, but their spatial memory instead.

Chi-Chi, a Giant panda that came 1961 to the London Zoo in 1961 at the same time the WWF was being formed was the inspiration for the WWF logo.

Pandas are one of a few animals whose body parts have escaped being used by the Chinese in traditional medicine.

Pandas have long symbolized peace in China. Hundreds of years ago, the Chinese would raise a truce flag with a panda depicted on it.

Pandas have been on Earth for around 2-3 million years.

The name "panda" may come from the Nepalese "poonya," meaning "plant-eating animal" or "bamboo-eating animal".

Under its black fur, the Giant panda's skin is black and pink where it is white.