Facts about Panda

Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous; it consists almost exclusively of bamboo.

The panda also has pushed its habitat to a higher altitude and limited available space.

Recent studies paint a different picture, in which small groups of pandas share a large territory and sometimes meet outside the breeding season.

Giant pandas can usually live to be 20 to 30 years old while living in captivity.

Giant pandas are among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and are one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

The radial sesamoid, underlying a pad on the panda's forepaw, is elongated and greatly expanded until it approximates the size of the true digits, which form the framework of another pad (Gould 1980).

The red panda and the giant panda, although completely different in appearance, share several features.

The population boom of people in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas.

Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans.

Keeping pandas in zoos is very expensive, more than five times the cost of the next most expensive animal, an elephant (Goodman 2006).

A slight pink color may appear on the panda's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva.

The giant panda is considered to be a living fossil since it has same maintained the same form for millions of years (Maynard 2007).

The panda's round face is an adaptation to its bamboo diet.

The giant panda is a favorite of the human public, at least partly because many people find that the species has an appealing "baby-like" cuteness.

Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals.

Giant pandas live in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi, and Tibet.

Recently, the numbers of pandas have been increasing.

The red panda is native to the Himalayas in Nepal and southern China.

The exception is the giant panda, whose pupils are vertical slits like cats' eyes.

The giant panda has a paw, with a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the panda to hold bamboo while eating.

Various reports puts the number of pandas currently as either less than 2,000 pandas in the wild or perhaps as many as 3,000 individuals (BBC 2006a; Zhu 2006).

Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, but it is hard to live in the remains of a forest and feed on dying plants in a rugged landscape.

The timber profit gained from harvesting bamboo has destroyed a significant portion of the food supply for the wild panda.

Pangaea broke apart during the Triassic and Jurassic periods of the Mesozoic, separating into Laurasia and Gondwana (or Gondwanaland).

During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped.

Pandas have been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times and by foreigners since they were introduced to the West.

Until its relation to the red panda was discovered in 1901, the giant panda was known as mottled bear (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or particolored bear.

Usually, the female panda gives birth to one or two panda cubs.

Two subspecies of giant panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al.

In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000.

The giant panda was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary Armand David, who received a skin from a hunter on March 11, 1869.

Among zoos which have or have had giant pandas are the following.

The word panda is derived from the Nepalese word ponya, which means bamboo and plant-eating animals in Nepal.

A female panda may have 2–3 cubs in a lifetime, on average.

Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them, and as a result, the pandas were caged for any sign of decline, and they suffered from terrible conditions.

The Chinese language name for the giant panda, ???, literally translates to "large bear cat," or just "bear cat" (??).

Giant pandas are an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity.

Baby pandas weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900th of the mother’s weight.

By the year 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy.

The term panda is also used for the red panda, Ailurus fulgens, another mostly herbivorous mammal, specialized as a bamboo feeder, but only distantly related to the giant panda.

Giant panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year and live with their mother until they are 18 months to two years old.

Pandas in Japan have double names: a Japanese name and a Chinese name.

Pandas may eat other foods such as honey, eggs, fish, and yams.

In 1936, Ruth Harkness became the first Westerner to bring back a live giant panda, a cub named Su-Lin (Wadson 2003), who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.

Like most subtropical mammals, but unlike most bears, the giant panda does not hibernate.

Contrary to popular belief, giant pandas do not reproduce slowly.

Research shows that in cases in which its offspring may be under threat, the panda can and most often will react violently.

The name "panda" originates with a Himalayan language, possibly Nepali.

Growth is slow and pandas may not reach sexual maturity until they are five to seven years old.

In captivity, zoos typically maintain the pandas' bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements.

After the Chinese economic reform, demands for panda skin from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time.

A slight pink color may appear on the panda's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva.

The giant panda also has a short tail, approximately 15 centimeters long.

Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit.

Until recently, scientists thought giant pandas spent most of their lives alone, with males and females meeting only during the breeding season.

The giant panda has had a unique role in recent years, having formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) toward the West—cultural exchanges termed "panda diplomacy."

Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., became the first foreigners to shoot a panda, on an expedition funded by the Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s.

Emperor Taizong of Tang was said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill.

Like most subtropical mammals, but unlike most bears, the giant panda does not hibernate.

Studies have shown that wild pandas reproduce as well as North American brown bears (Warren 2005).

The first Westerner known to have seen a living giant panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916.

The giant panda's closest ursine relative is considered to be the spectacled bear of South America.

Two subspecies of giant panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al.