Giant Panda

Size and Looks

Giant Pandas are known for their black and white pigment. They have black around their eyes along with black ears. One theory suggests the black and white pigment is used as camouflage in the bamboo forest. This might be wrong because there are no predators to hide from. Another theory suggests it is used as social signals to other Giant Pandas to keep each other from socializing. Panda bears live alone and rather not socialize. Another theory suggests that the black fur absorbs heat as the white fur doesn't, this may be to keep an even temperature. We really don’t know why the Panda bears are black and white though. They are one of the icons of the country China. They can grow up to being 4-6 ft (1.2-1.9 m) tall.

Behavior

Giant Pandas are mostly quadrupedal so they walk on all four limbs. Although the Pandas are super cute, they are also very strong and sometimes dangerous and can hurt humans if they are hurt or teased. Panda Bears love to climb trees and they are excellent at it and they are also extremely playful. Scientists are not sure how long Giant Pandas' lifespan is but they estimate it being 20-25 years in the wild and 30 with human support.

Giant Pandas don’t socialize vocally and they do not have any physical signaling signs. They use sent marks to communicate with other Pandas, they have secretions from their anal glands. They rub these secretions on trees, rocks, the ground, and other landmarks around the forest. They usually just put these secretions in their own territories. These scent marks give certain messages that either keep bears away or bring bears together. Outside of breeding season it is usually to keep bears away.

Although these bears are mostly solitary there are a few reports of 7 to 15 bears living in the same territory. These groups avoid socializing with other groups. These Panda groups are mostly males because males territories overlap with other bears a lot more than females territories overlap with other bears.

Giant Pandas like to sleep. They sleep at any position whether it is on their side, curled up, on their belly, on their back, and flat on the ground. Pandas sleep between 2-4 hours usually in between feeding times. They sometimes sleep more than 6 hour in the summer. They also defecate while sleeping.

Diet

Giant Pandas eat a lot of bamboo in fact over 90% of their diet is bamboo! They eat about 20-40 pounds of bamboo a day and also eat other plants or other small animals, but mostly bamboo. They eat about 12 hours every day. They have very flat molars that are used to grind up their food.

Habitat

Panda bears live in the mountains of southeast China. They are found in the Sichuan, Shaanxi, and the Gansu provinces of China. Giant Pandas used to live in the lowlands of China but due to habitat loss, farms, and other human activities they are now limited to the mountains. They live in elevations of 1,000-5,000 ft in broadleaf and coniferous forests with lots of bamboo. In the mountains there is lots of rain, mist, and dense clouds.

Breeding

In breeding season female scent marks tell males that the female is ready to breed and they usually accept males if they have seen or smelled them before. Females can only mate every other month. These bears are not very vocal but in breeding season they are extremely vocal. After mating a female will birth her babies in around 90-180 days. A female can birth two at once but usually just one survives. They stay with their mother for 3 years before leaving. A female Giant Panda will only raise about 5-8 cubs in their lifespan. These naturally slow breeding patterns prevent Giant Pandas from recovering from endangerment.

When a baby is born they are completely helpless and need lots of help from the mother to survive. When newborns are born they are pink, hairless, and completely blind. They are 3-5 oz when born and are around the size of a stick of butter. They are around 1/900 the size of the mother, they are the smallest mammal babies in comparison of their mothers, besides marsupials. They cannot open their eyes and walk until 6-8 weeks weeks after they are born.

Pandas are endangered

Unfortunately, Giant Pandas are Endangered. For a million years Giant Pandas lived in the mountains of China peacefully. Until humans started to damage their habitat and now humans are mostly the reason that Giant Pandas are endangered. But when humans started chopping down bamboo forest Giant Pandas had nothing to eat and a lot of Pandas starved to death. Now there are restrictions on people hurting the Pandas' environment but there is still a lot of illegal activity happening. People are also stuffing them and selling them on the black market. Due to these problems in the wild, there are only about 1,200 left in the world. But we are slowly growing the population back.

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Image Credit: Allosaurus: "Allosaurus fragilis Marsh, 1877" by Marshall P. Felch is marked with CC0 1.0. Narwhals: by NOAA. Livyatan: Cam Dillon.