Kretzoiarctos

The **European giant panda** (*Kretzoiarctos europeansis*), also known as the **brown panda**, is a species of bear of the Ailuropodinae subfamily that originally lived from Europe during the Miocene as an extinct species, ***Kretzoiarctos beatrix***, and was once extinct, but has since been brought back from extinction by SciiFii and introduced throughout the modern wetlands, forests, and open woodlands across Europe to help boost biodiversity. The closest living relative of the European giant panda is the Asiatic giant panda (*Ailuropoda melanoleuca*). Like Asiatic giant pandas, the European giant panda is a small herbivorous animal that feeds primarily on very hard plants, including bamboo. The average European giant panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 lb) of plant shoots and other tough plants a day to compensate for the limited energy content of its diet. Ingestion of such a large quantity of material is possible and necessary because of the rapid passage of large amounts of indigestible plant material through the short, straight digestive tract. It is also noted, however, that such rapid passage of digesta limits the potential of microbial digestion in the gastrointestinal tract, limiting alternative forms of digestion. Given this voluminous diet, the European giant panda defecates up to 40 times a day. The limited energy input imposed on it by its diet has affected the panda's behavior. The European giant panda tends to limit its social interactions and avoids steeply sloping terrain to limit its energy expenditures. The European giant panda's paw has a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb", actually a modified sesamoid bone, helps it to hold tough plant shoots while eating. European giant pandas are generally solitary. Each adult has a defined territory and a female is not tolerant of other females in her range. 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. European giant pandas communicate through vocalisation 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. European giant pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory. Though the European giant panda, just like the Asiatic giant panda, is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than aggression. The European giant pandas have comparable breeding to some populations of the American black bear. The normal reproductive rate is considered to be one young every two years. European giant pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of four and eight, and may be reproductive until age 20. The mating season is between March and May, when a female goes into estrus, which lasts for two or three days and only occurs once a year. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts her from behind. Copulation time ranges from 30 seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount her repeatedly to ensure successful fertilisation. The gestation period is somewhere between 95 and 160 days - the variability is due to the fact that the fertilized egg may linger in the reproductive system for awhile before implanting on the uterine wall. European giant pandas give birth to twins in about half of pregnancies. If twins are born, usually only one survives in the wild. The mother will select the stronger of the cubs, and the weaker cub will die due to starvation. The mother is unable to produce enough milk for two cubs since she does not store fat. The father has no part in helping raise the cub. The conservation status of the European giant panda is **Least Concern** due to successful conservation efforts, the European giant panda's wide range and, unlike most other panda species, its tolerance to many of the human activities, thanks to adjusting its behavior in human-disturbed areas and its varied diet of a wide range of tough vegetation and not just bamboo.