Ailuropoda Melanoleuca

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in biology, Ailuropoda Melanoleuca (Alias:Giant Panda or Panda Bear, Panda,大熊猫) belongs to the Subfamily Ailuropodinae in the family Ursidae. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes used to distinguish it from the red panda, a neighboring musteloid. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the giant panda is a folivore, with bamboo shoots and leaves making up more than 99% of its diet. Giant pandas in the wild 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.

Giant pandas live in dense bamboo forests at an altitude of 2,600-3,500 meters, where the temperature is below 20°C all year round. There is sufficient bamboo, and the topography and water distribution are conducive to the species building nests, hiding and raising young. Giant pandas are good at climbing trees and love to play. The behavior of climbing trees is generally a way for the weak to avoid the strong when the marriage proposal is approaching, or to escape danger, or when they meet each other. Giant pandas spend half of their time eating every day, and most of the remaining half of their time is spent sleeping. In the wild, giant pandas sleep for 2-4 hours between meals. 99% of the food of giant pandas is bamboo, and there are more than 60 species of bamboo plants in 12 genera that can be eaten by giant pandas . The life span of giant pandas in the wild is 18-20 years, and they can exceed 30 years in captivity.

The giant panda has lived on the earth for at least 8 million years. It is known as a "living fossil" and "China's national treasure". It is the image ambassador of the World Wildlife Fund and the flagship species of the world's biodiversity conservation. As of January 2021, China's wild population of giant pandas has increased to 1,864. As of October 2023, the total number of giant pandas living abroad in China has reached 63.

Giant pandas are plump and plump like bears, with a round head and short tail. The head and body are 1.2-1.8 meters long, and the tail is 10-12 centimeters long. Weighing 80-120 kilograms, the heaviest can reach 180 kilograms. Raised pandas are slightly heavier, and generally male individuals are slightly larger than females. The hair color of the head and body is distinctly black and white, but the black is not pure black, and the white is not pure white, but black with brown and white with yellow. Individuals in the Qinling area are relatively large, with rough body hair and slightly brown abdominal hair. Minshan (especially Qingchuan Pingwu) individuals are smaller, and their body hair is thinner than the former. The brown abdominal hair is not obvious, but Liangshan individuals are not too small. The black and white appearance helps it hide in the trees of dense forests and on the snowy ground and is not easily discovered by natural enemies. Relatively sharp claws and well-developed and powerful front and rear limbs help giant pandas quickly climb tall trees.

Giant pandas have thick skin, up to 10 mm at its thickest point. The skin thickness is also different in different parts of the body. The back of the body is thicker than the ventral side, and the outside of the body is thicker than the inside. The average thickness of the skin is about 5 mm, and it is white, elastic and tough.

Giant pandas have extremely underdeveloped vision. This is because giant pandas have lived in dense bamboo forests for a long time, with very dark light and many obstacles, causing their vision to become very short-sighted. In addition, because its pupils are longitudinally slit like a cat. Therefore, when night falls in the evening, they are still active.

The word panda was borrowed into English from French, but no conclusive explanation of the origin of the French word panda has been found. The closest candidate is the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone of the red panda, which is native to Nepal. In many older sources, the name "panda" or "common panda" refers to the red panda (Ailurus fulgens), which was described some 40 years earlier and over that period was the only animal known as a panda. This necessitated the use of "giant" and "lesser/red" prefixes to differentiate the species. Even in 2013, the Encyclopædia Britannica still used "giant panda" or "panda bear" for the bear, and simply "panda" for the red panda.

Since the earliest collection of Chinese writings, the Chinese language has given the bear many different names, including mò (貘, ancient Chinese name for giant panda), huāxióng (花熊; "spotted bear") and zhúxióng (竹熊; "bamboo bear"). The most popular names in China today are dàxióngmāo (大熊貓; lit. 'giant bear cat'), or simply xióngmāo (熊貓; lit. 'bear cat'). As with the word panda in English, xióngmāo (熊貓) was originally used to describe just the red panda, but dàxióngmāo (大熊貓) and xiǎoxióngmāo (小熊猫; lit. 'little bear cat') were coined to differentiate between the species.

In Taiwan, another popular name for panda is the inverted dàmāoxióng (大貓熊; lit. 'giant cat bear'), though many encyclopedias and dictionaries in Taiwan still use the "bear cat" form as the correct name. Some linguists argue, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making the name more grammatically and logically correct, which may have led to the popular choice despite official writings. This name did not gain its popularity until 1988, when a private zoo in Tainan painted a sun bear black and white and created the Tainan fake panda incident.

The modern name of the giant panda (that is, the name commonly used in China) was originally called Cat Bear or Big Cat Bear, which means that its face is as round and chubby as a cat, but its overall body shape is like a bear. Some even classify it as a member of the Ursidae family. . Before the 1950s, Chinese was written in straight script and read from right to left, but after it was changed to horizontal script, it was from left to right. When it was exhibited in the Beibei Museum in Sichuan in 1939, the title was stated in horizontal script. The name was a cat and a panda. At that time, visitors were accustomed to reading the book straight from right to left, and mistakenly thought it was a panda.

Since then, misinformation has spread throughout the country where it is mainly produced (Sichuan), and over time it has become common for the panda to be renamed panda. From then on, its common Chinese name was giant panda, and it was recognized by people. Its local name is often called Baixiong, or Bailaoxiong, or Flower Bear in its hometown; in the Tibetan area of Minshan, it is called Dang or Dudongga (gǎ), and among the Baimadab people in Pingwu, it is called Dongga. ; The Liangshan Yi people are called Equ. Although all these place names have different names, their meanings are the same as those called Pixiu or Tapir in ancient books. They all mean that its body color is white, or black and white, or its body shape is like a bear.

Other names for giant pandas include Chinese bear, bamboo bear, silver dog and giant raccoon. Silver Dog, this is because the local name and commercial name of the red panda is Golden Dog, and the corresponding panda is white in color, so it is called Silver Dog. The Bamboo Bear is named after its main food source is bamboo and resembles a bear. Hua Xiong shows that it is a rare and exotic animal unique to the Chinese nation.

After the Western world got to know it, it was initially translated as "big cat bear" or "cat bear". However, there is another legend that when the news was first published in the 20th Century newspaper, it was accidentally reversed to "panda", and unexpectedly it became a common term. name. If you follow these names as clues, you can trace many miraculous records.

There are relatively complete rules and requirements for giving formal names to giant pandas, which basically require the name to reflect the connection with its ethnic group, so that it can be tracked and identified in the relevant scientific research process.

Baoxing County is located in Ya'an City in the northwest of Sichuan, China. It has overlapping mountains, sweet streams, towering trees, and pleasant scenery all year round. It is located in the transition zone from basin to plateau and mountains. It contains nearly a quarter of all animal species in China, many of which are rare birds and animals. From 1862 to 1874, when the French missionary Armand Davide was living in China, he learned that there were many kinds of animals in Baoxing, Sichuan, some of which were rare species that were not yet known to people. He arrived in Baoxing from Shanghai and served as the governor of Muping East River. The fourth generation priest of Dengchigou Church.

In the spring of 1869, David passed by a family named Li on the way. Suddenly, a strange black and white animal skin hanging on the wall attracted David deeply. The owner told him: The locals call this animal "white bear", "flower bear" or "bamboo bear". It is very docile and generally does not hurt people. David was extremely excited. He estimated that this animal "will be an interesting new species in science." This discovery will fill a gap in the world's animal research. In order to get this strange animal, David hired 20 local hunters to hunt for it. On March 23, the hunters sent the first little "white bear". Unfortunately, they killed it in order to make it easier to carry.

On May 4, 1869, David caught a "bamboo bear", which he named "Black and White Bear". The naive "Black and White Bear" had a furry, black and white appearance, and a round and big head. David loved his funny and funny actions. After a period of careful feeding, David decided to take this cute "black and white bear" back to France. This lovely "black and white bear" could not withstand the bumps of the long mountain road and the constant changes in the climate. It was dying before it was transported to Chengdu. David had to regretfully make the skin of this "black and white bear" into a specimen and send it to Chengdu. On display at the National Museum in Paris, France. This is how the world's first giant panda type specimen was produced.

The National Museum in Paris, France, put this animal skin on display. After thorough research, museum director Miller Edwards concluded that it was neither a bear nor a cat, but another larger species similar to the little bear found in Tibet, China. The giant panda was officially named "Big Panda".

In 1939, Chongqing Pingming Zoo held an exhibition of animal specimens, among which the "cat and panda" specimen attracted the most attention. Its signage uses popular international writing formats, indicating Chinese and Latin respectively. However, since the customary way of reading Chinese at that time was to read from right to left, visitors always read "cat panda" as "panda". Over time, people came to call the "big panda" "giant panda" by convention. A newspaper in Taiwan once wrote an article to rectify the name of "Panda", but people have become accustomed to it and feel that "Cat Panda" is not so smooth. From then on, the modern name "Giant Panda" was born. David became the first foreigner to introduce China's Baoxing giant pandas to the Western world.

The discovery of giant pandas caused a sensation in the Western world. Since then, groups of Western explorers, safaris and museum specimen collectors have come to giant panda producing areas, trying to uncover the mystery of giant pandas and hunt this rare animal. Among them were Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt, two sons of President Roosevelt. The two brothers first went to Baoxing County where David discovered the giant panda, but found nothing, and then entered the Daliang Mountains. In Yuexi County, they shot and killed a giant panda, made a specimen and took it back to the United States. Later, explorers from Germany, Britain and other countries hunted giant pandas, and even more were purchased from Chinese hunters. For a time, many museums in Western countries had specimens of giant pandas. But they were never able to capture a live giant panda.

In 1936, 67 years after Father David discovered the giant panda, 35-year-old New York fashion designer Ruth Harkless was newly married. Her husband, William Harkless, was an avid explorer and went to China to search for giant pandas two weeks after their marriage. However, William died of illness in Shanghai before reaching the giant panda producing area. Determined to fulfill her husband's legacy, Ruth set off for China in April 1936, two months after her husband's death.

Ruth's expedition team consists of only two people-she and 25-year-old Chinese-American Quentin Yang. They took a small wooden boat upstream from Shanghai to Chengdu, and then entered Wenchuan, looking for traces of giant pandas in the deep mountains and old forests, and setting traps for hunting. On November 9, 1936, when Yang Quenting caught a small furry animal from a tree hole and handed it to Ruth, who was numb from the cold, she could not believe it. This was what Westerners had dreamed of for more than half a century. Ruth thought the little one, less than 3 pounds, was a female (later proved to be a male), so she named it "Su Lin" after Yang Quenting's wife. Fortunately, Ruth quickly returned to Chengdu with Su Lin, and then flew to Shanghai.

Although Westerners had sought the giant panda for more than half a century and knew it was a rare animal on the verge of extinction, until then, the Chinese knew almost nothing about the giant panda. Hunters can hunt this kind of "bear" at will, and the government has no regulations or measures to protect it. Ruth's trouble is not that she captured the giant panda, but that the procedures for entering mainland China are incomplete and therefore cannot leave the country. Finally, she bribed her way onto the ship to the United States. She put Su Lin in a large wicker basket, wrote on the customs registration form "I am taking a pug with me", and slipped out of the customs.

Ruth and Su Lin were still sailing on the Pacific Ocean, and transoceanic telegraphs had already spread the news throughout the United States. When the ship docked at the San Francisco pier, it was the day before Christmas. The surprised Americans held a grand welcome ceremony on the pier. They arranged the most luxurious suites for their precious guests and held a grand welcome party. Su Lin was sent to many big cities for exhibitions, causing a sensation wherever she went. When Roosevelt's son Theodore, who had traveled to China in search of giant pandas, met Su Lin, he said emotionally, "If this little guy is regarded as a souvenir from my gunshot, I would rather use my son instead."

After fierce competition, Chicago Brookfield Zoo acquired Su Lin. People flocked here like a tide, reaching 40,000 people on a single day, exceeding the zoo's highest attendance record. Su Lin's every move becomes newspaper news. Businessmen are rushing to produce products with giant panda images. Stylish girls swaggered around in swimsuits with giant panda patterns. Even a cocktail is named after a giant panda. The story of Ruth and Suline became a bestseller and was adapted for the screen.

Unfortunately, Su Lin only lived for a year and was made into a specimen for permanent display. The appearance of Su Lin brought giant pandas from museums to the public. It is not only rare, but also cute, and it has become an animal star all over the world. All major Western countries went to China to capture giant pandas. From 1936 to 1941, the United States alone took away 9 giant pandas from China. West China University, a missionary school in Chengdu, was very helpful. After staying in the giant panda producing area for 20 years, the British man Tangier Smith, known as the "Panda King", acquired a total of 9 living giant pandas in the three years from 1936 to 1938, and brought 6 of them to his home. Arrived in England.

During World War II, the giant panda "Ming" at the London Zoo showed calmness and played freely under the bombings of German planes, and became a wartime hero in the hearts of London citizens. At the height of the war, newspapers were still reporting on Ming's life. Ming died at the end of 1944. An obituary published in The Times said: "She can die with no regrets because she brought happiness to thousands of people." After the end of World War II, in December 1945, the British organized a team of more than 200 people through diplomatic channels to conduct a large-scale search in Wenchuan, and finally captured a giant panda and sent it to the UK. Like many things in China, pandas' status in China has quickly risen after they became popular abroad. Starting in the 1940s, the government began to restrict hunting activities by foreigners.

In July 2022, Chinese and American scientists discovered by studying the "sixth finger" fossils of early giant pandas that giant pandas prefer to eat bamboo for at least 6 million years. The results were published in the international journal Scientific Reports. Research results show that the giant panda's "sixth finger" does not move independently like the human thumb. It forms a complex with the first metacarpal bone and scapholunate bone through fixed joints, and then links with other metacarpal bones. Although it is a passive grip, it is enough to provide the giant panda with the grip needed to eat bamboo.

Giant pandas have a long history. The fossils of the oldest member of the giant panda discovered so far, EoPanda, were unearthed in Lufeng and Yuanmou, Yunnan, China, with a geological age of about 8 million years ago in the late Miocene. In the long-term and severe competition for survival and natural selection, many animals of their generation have become extinct. However, the giant panda is a strong one and has an advantage. It has survived to this day and has become a "living fossil."

The ancestor of the giant panda is Ailuaractos lufengensis. The standard Chinese name of the giant panda is actually "Mao Xiong", which means "cat-like bear". This is the earliest panda that evolved from ursids and mainly eats carnivores. The main branch of the panda continues to evolve in central and southern China. One of them appeared in the early Pleistocene about 3 million years ago. It is smaller than the panda. It is inferred from its teeth that it has evolved into an omnivore that eats both bamboo and bamboo. , oviparous bears. Since then, this main branch has expanded to the subtropics and is widely distributed in North China, Northwest China, East China, Southwest China, South China, and even Vietnam and northern Myanmar. Fossils have been found. During this process, giant pandas adapted to life in subtropical bamboo forests, and gradually increased in size and relied on bamboo for survival. The middle and late Pleistocene, 500,000 to 700,000 years ago, was the heyday of giant pandas. Giant pandas in life have well-developed molars, and their claws have a "thumb" in addition to five toes. This "thumb" is actually a specialized carpal bone, its scientific name is "radial sesamoid bone", and it mainly plays the role of holding bamboo.

Fossils show that the ancestors of giant pandas appeared in the early Pluvial Period 2-3 million years ago. Hundreds of thousands of years ago was the heyday of the giant panda. It belonged to the Stegodon paleontological group. The giant panda's habitat once covered most of eastern and southern China, reaching Beijing in the north and southern Myanmar and Vietnam in the south. North. Fossils are usually found in temperate or subtropical forests at altitudes of 500-700 meters. Later, the animals of the same period became extinct one after another, but the giant panda is still alive today and maintains its original ancient characteristics.

The Chinese have a long history of understanding pandas, and various names for pandas have been recorded since the early days of writing. "The Book of Books" calls it "pi", "Mao Shi" calls it "pi", "Emei Mountain Chronicles" calls it "pixiu", "The Book of Beasts" calls it "pi", Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" calls it "pi", and so on.

In March 1869, the French naturalist Father Armand David (1826.9.7-1900.11.10) was conducting a scientific investigation near the Dengchigou (Muping) Church in Baoxing County, Ya'an, Sichuan, China. Traces of what the locals call white bears and flower bears were found. With the help of local hunters, he collected a specimen of a white bear on April 1. The fur color is black or white, and the bottom of the soles of the feet is hairy. It looks like a bear. This is a strange animal that he has never seen before. Its specimens and bones were shipped to France. Alphonse Miller Edwards, a scientist at the Paris Museum of Natural History, identified the "black and white bear" as a new species and named it Ailuropoda melanoleuca (cat bear). The identification report was published in the 1869 "New Documents of the Paris Museum of Natural History". Five volumes, from then on, the cat and bear living in the wilderness entered the vision of human civilization.

Giant pandas inhabit the high mountains and deep valleys in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in China, which are on the windward side of the southeast monsoon. The climate is warm, cool and humid, with humidity often above 80%. They are moisture-loving animals. The six narrow strips where giant pandas live include Minshan, Qionglai Mountain, Liangshan, Daxiangling, Xiaoxiangling and Qinling mountain systems, spanning 45 counties (cities) in the three provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu. It covers an area of more than 20,000 square kilometers and has a wild population of more than 1,800, of which more than 80% are distributed in Sichuan. Their active areas are mostly in valleys, mountainside depressions, valley terraces, etc., generally on gentle slopes below 20°. These places have lush forests, good bamboo growth, relatively stable temperatures, good shelter conditions, and abundant food and water resources.

Giant pandas live at an altitude of 1,200 meters to 4,100 meters, mainly in dense bamboo forests at 2,600 to 3,500 meters, where the air is thin all year round, clouds are shrouded, and the temperature is below 20°C. Some other factors will also affect the distribution and density of giant pandas in the wild: the distribution of bamboo, terrain, water sources, whether there are hiding places and dens for raising cubs, and mountain topography. Human interference is the main factor affecting the distribution of giant pandas today.

Giant pandas are not afraid of cold and wet and never hibernate. Even if the temperature is between -4 and 14 degrees Celsius, they still walk through the bamboo thickly packed with snow. They are not afraid of moisture and always like to live in a damp world with a humidity of more than 80%.

behavioral characteristics

Giant pandas spend half of their time eating every day, and most of the remaining half of their time is spent sleeping. In the wild, giant pandas sleep for 2-4 hours between every two meals. Lying flat, on their sides, prone, stretched out or curled up are their preferred sleeping methods. In the zoo, keepers feed them regularly twice a day, so the giant pandas spend the rest of their time resting. Giant pandas look cute even when sleeping. They are very flexible and can put their bulky bodies into a variety of positions. My favorite position is to put my legs up on a tree and cover my eyes with my hands.

The most adorable features of the giant panda are its chubby body and the slow, piggy-back way it walks. This is because they live in an environment where there is plenty of food and no natural predators, so there is no need to move quickly. But it's this slow movement that allows it to conserve energy and adapt to low-energy foods. They sometimes climb trees to scout out situations, escape intruders, or take a nap.

Giant pandas are good at climbing trees and love to play. The behavior of climbing trees is generally a way for the weak to avoid the strong when the marriage proposal is approaching, or to escape danger, or when they meet each other. Pandas sometimes go down to valleys and enter mountain villages or houses. They treat pots, pots, buckets, especially round utensils as toys, and then abandon them in the mountains after playing with them. Sometimes they also become friendly with domesticated livestock such as sheep and pigs, eating and living together.

Under normal circumstances, giant pandas always have a very docile temperament. When meeting people for the first time, they often cover their faces with their front paws or lower their heads to hide their true appearance. They rarely actively attack other animals or people, and always avoid them when encountering them in the wild. But once a mother becomes a mother, her little baby is sacred and inviolable. Even caring and visiting will make the mother angry, baring her teeth and claws, and moving her hands and feet. Sometimes they also like to do some grooming and other fitness activities. You can straighten your body like a cat, stretching out the front and lifting the back half to allow the body to stretch flexibly, or after waking up, straighten the forelimbs and yawn. If you get wet or after wading in a river, you can shake off the water like a dog.

In the wild, giant pandas often conflict during the estrus season, especially when three to four males pursue a female in estrus. Sometimes, females and males also fight. In zoos, their fights are usually over water, food or one panda claiming good territory.

scent mark

Visible signals are meaningless to giant pandas: their round faces lack expression, their tails are short, and they have no crest or brown fur to spread out, and their ears can be raised and lowered but are not flexible enough. This is all caused by the fact that pandas live in dense mist-filled bamboo forests on high mountains all year round and cannot see each other.

Giant pandas communicate most through scent marks left in their habitat. When they want to meet, usually during estrus, they find each other by scent marking. Once they meet, they switch to vocal communication. Giant pandas rely on their rich "language" to express emotions from amorous to angry.

Silence is another form of communication. When giant pandas are playing or simply expressing friendship and have no thoughts of mating or aggression, they do not make any sounds. This sound rule can help people judge the behavior of most pandas seen in zoos.

Marking territory with scent is their secret to staying peaceful in the bamboo forest. Giant pandas smear the secretions of their perianal glands on pillars, tree stumps, walls, the ground and places they often pass by. These scent marks allow them to avoid each other or come together. During the non-estrus season, they will walk away as soon as they smell the scent of a strange panda. During the estrus season, a female giant panda's scent may indicate that she is ready to mate and hopes to attract males.

Giant pandas have several ways of marking themselves. They are often marked with urine, or a mixture of urine and perianal gland secretions. When they mark, they shake their heads and half-open their mouths. After making a mark, they will peel off the bark or leave scratch marks at the marked place to attract the attention of other pandas.

Diet food

The giant panda’s eating habits are one of its most peculiar and interesting habits, because it almost entirely depends on eating bamboo. Among the more than 50 kinds of plants naturally foraged in the wild, bamboo accounts for more than half and accounts for the annual food supply. 99% of them, among which the 7 most favorite species include Dendrobium japonicus and Dendrobium sinensis. Although with the change in feeding habits, some organs have also undergone corresponding changes, especially the teeth. Its molars are very developed and are the most powerful among carnivores. The structure is relatively complex, close to omnivorous beasts, and the cleft teeth are The differentiation is not obvious, the canines and premolars are well developed, and there is no alveolar space. The upper incisors are arranged in an arc, the lower incisors are in a horizontal row, and the second pair of lower incisors are often positioned far back, seemingly forming a double row. This phenomenon is more obvious in the skulls of older individuals. The roots of the canine teeth are thick, the crowns are short, and the tips are not sharp. The first pair of premolars are very small, and are often missing on one or both sides. The front edges of the second pair of upper premolars are biased inward, and the rear edges are biased outwards, in a semi-oblique position. The third and fourth pairs of upper premolars are The crown of the tooth is prismatic, with 3 denticles on the outside and 2 on the inside. Molars are called papilloma-shaped teeth. Their chewing surfaces are very wide and roughly rectangular. They have nodular cusps of different sizes. The upper molars have 4 larger cusps. The last upper molar is extra large and extends backward. The posterior part of the zygomatic bone has a complex small prismatic tooth process on the coronal surface. The last lower molar is small and has an inconspicuous tip, located on the inner side of the front edge of the mandibular ramus. In general, the last upper molar of carnivores is located at the front edge of the base of the coronoid process. The backward movement of the giant panda's molars can limit the left and right swing of the upper and lower molars and enhance the chewing effect, but the grinding effect is limited. . The wear of molars is different up and down. The wear of lower molars starts from the outside, while the wear of upper molars starts from the inside. The reason is that the distance between the left and right upper molar rows is greater than the distance between the lower jaw molar rows. Overall, its teeth are different from those of other carnivores, but very similar to those of herbivorous ungulates.

The five clawed toes on its forefoot are parallel, and there is also a sixth digit, which is a powerful sesamoid bone that grows from the wrist bone and plays the role of a "thumb". It can be used with the other 5 fingers to hold bamboo well, even grab things, climb trees, etc. But it still retains the relatively simple digestive tract of carnivores. It does not have the complex stomach and huge cecum specially used to store food that herbivores have, and the intestines and stomach are not used to process cellulose from plants. Symbiotic bacteria or ciliates ferment into nutrients that can be absorbed. In order to get the nutrients you need, the only way is to eat and drink as fast as you can. An adult giant panda weighing 100 kilograms will spend 12-16 hours a day in spring, eating 10-18 kilograms of bamboo leaves and bamboo stalks, or 30-38 kilograms of fresh bamboo shoots, and excrete more than 10 kilograms of feces at the same time. Maintain metabolic balance.

The food of giant pandas is low in nutrition and cannot store too much energy. In order to conserve energy, activities that consume too much energy must be controlled. Therefore, it likes to walk on gentle terrain and avoid climbing hills. They usually only move in a small area, using smells, sounds, etc. to transmit information, and do not have direct contact with each other. In addition to eating bamboo, giant pandas also eat some weeds and other plants, but the amount they eat is very small. In addition, it is not a real "monk". When it encounters an opportunity, it also wants to eat "meat" to restore the nature of its ancestors. For example, there is a pest rat distributed in its habitat, called the bamboo rat, commonly known as "bamboo rat", which specializes in eating the underground roots of arrow bamboo, causing it to wither. But its meat is tender, delicious and nutritious, just like a local saying goes: "Turtle doves in the sky, bamboo slips on the ground." Giant pandas have an ingenious way to deal with bamboo rats. Once they smell its scent or find its traces, they can quickly find its cave, then blow into the hole with their mouths, and slap hard with their front paws to force the bamboo rats. The rat fled in a hurry, but the giant panda took the opportunity to jump up, hold it down with its front paws, tear off the rat's skin, and eat all its meat. If the bamboo rat does not come out of its hole, the giant panda will dig holes and ransack the house until it is captured.

Although the giant panda also has the potential to eat meat as a carnivore, it rarely preys on animals or animal carcasses. This is not because it does not like to eat meat, but because it lacks opportunities. Because there are very few large carnivores in the giant panda's distribution area, there are not many carcasses left for the giant panda to eat. If it often catches small animals such as mice and rats, the nutrients it receives are often not enough to compensate for the energy it consumes. Therefore, giant pandas can only eat a little meat occasionally, and most of the time they rely on bamboo to sustain their lives. They have become animals that follow the rules and rely on bamboo throughout their lives.

Captive giant pandas mainly feed on one or several types of low-mountain bamboos, and their supplementary food is concentrated feed made mainly from cereals. Bamboo is the key to the growth, development, health and normal reproduction of giant pandas. With the improvement of giant panda breeding technology, it is gradually recognized that the alpine or sub-alpine bamboos that provide giant pandas with their favorite food play an important role in their health and normal breeding; coupled with the improvement of transportation conditions. Under captive conditions, giant pandas can also be artificially provided with a large amount of alpine or sub-alpine bamboos.

The food of giant pandas is not just arrow bamboo. In fact, giant pandas like to eat many types of bamboo, and arrow bamboo is just one of the more common types. These bamboos have long been growing under the canopy of subalpine dark coniferous forests, mountain dark coniferous forests, mountainous mixed coniferous and broadleaf forests, and mountainous evergreen broadleaf forests, at altitudes ranging from 700 to 3,500 meters. Giant pandas in different mountain systems have different staple foods of bamboo. The diet of giant pandas changes with the mountains and seasons. They eat different types of bamboo or different parts of the same type of bamboo in different seasons. In spring and summer, they like to eat different kinds of bamboo shoots. In autumn, bamboo leaves are the main food, and in winter, bamboo stalks are the main food.

Common edible bamboo species for giant pandas in the wild include: cold arrow bamboo, August bamboo, solid bamboo, Qiong bamboo, large-leaf Qiong bamboo, Ruo bamboo, few-flowered arrow bamboo, short-cone Yushan bamboo, Beibei Yushan bamboo, Ere bamboo, Bashan bamboo Wood bamboo, rough-flowered arrow bamboo, missing-bract arrow bamboo, Chinese orange bamboo, etc. Commonly used edible bamboo species for captive giant pandas include Bashan wood bamboo, spiny bamboo, white bamboo, Ruoye bamboo, light bamboo, bitter bamboo, broad-leaf Ruo bamboo, moso bamboo, also known as Mengzong bamboo, cold arrow bamboo, walking stick bamboo, arrow bamboo, and March bamboo shoots. , square bamboo shoots, etc. In addition to mainly eating bamboo, captive giant pandas can also obtain a small amount of concentrated feed, fruits, and vitamin and trace element additives. This is mainly because giant pandas cannot eat freely in captivity, and their nutritional intake is insufficient or unbalanced. Therefore, additions and replenishments are made manually. The main raw materials of concentrated feed include corn, soybeans, rice, wheat, etc. After these raw materials are cleaned, they are processed according to a certain ratio and processed with special techniques to become food for giant pandas. All food for giant pandas has strict selection standards and must undergo safety and nutritional testing before use. Only food that meets the requirements can be finally provided to the giant pandas.

Eating method

Giant pandas spend nearly half of their time eating every day. The digestive tract of the giant panda retains the characteristics of its ancestors and is similar to that of carnivores, such as a relatively short digestive tract, sharp canine teeth, a single-chambered stomach, the absence of a cecum, relatively sharp claws and well-developed meat pads. In the long process of evolution, it gradually evolved to eat high-fiber bamboo as its main food, and evolved some structural features to adapt to living on bamboo, such as the masseter muscle, the tooth crown and the tooth process, and in addition to the five toes on the front paws, it also evolved A pseudo-thumb forms a dual grip structure to facilitate holding bamboo.

Giant pandas spend most of their time on their hands and knees collecting, preparing and eating food. They don't care where they are - sitting, lying down, leaning on their sides - they just keep peeling off bamboo stalks and eating bamboo leaves. 99% of the giant panda's food is bamboo, and sometimes it may be some wild flowers, vines, weeds, honey, and even some meat.

Giant pandas mainly eat bamboo and also like to drink water. Most giant pandas' homes are located near streams and flowing water, so they can drink from clear springs nearby. Giant pandas drink water at least once a day. Although there is abundant food in some places, it is difficult to find giant pandas without water. In winter, when the mountain water is frozen by ice, some giant pandas may also be nostalgic for the hidden conditions and food base of their homeland and may even travel long distances, down ditches, to drink water in the valley, and then return home. Giant pandas always seek water as close as possible and walk out on an obvious drinking path day after day. When they come to the stream, they drink by licking and sucking. If the stream is thinly iced or filled with gravel, they break the ice with their forepaws or dig a shallow pit of about 25 x 20 cm with their claws to lick and drink. Giant pandas take bamboo as their main food, but bamboo is difficult to digest and absorb. As a result, the giant panda's energy intake is greatly restricted, and all its activities must take into account taking in as much energy as possible and consuming as little energy as possible.

With changes in climate and food distribution, giant pandas have the habit of vertical migration. In summer, they move up to high mountains to hunt for bamboo shoots, and in autumn and winter, they move down to mid- and low-mountain areas where snow is accumulated in the mountains.

Giant pandas have a low digestion and utilization rate of bamboo, and the food stays in the body for a short time, so they eat a lot and excrete it quickly to obtain enough energy to meet their needs. Depending on the parts of bamboo that giant pandas eat in different seasons, their daily food intake is roughly as follows: 23-40 kilograms of bamboo shoots; 10-18 kilograms of bamboo leaves; and 17 kilograms of bamboo stalks. Giant pandas are very intelligent animals, which is reflected in their excellent feeding strategies. They not only select the bamboo species with the best nutritional value in the region, but also give priority to the parts with the highest nutritional value. The order of eating is bamboo shoots, young bamboo, and bamboo stalks.

The giant panda is a unique species in China, and its distribution areas include the Qinling Mountains, Min Mountains, Qionglai Mountains, Daxiangling, Xiaoxiangling and Xiaoxiaoliang Mountains. The Qinling Mountains are distributed in the southern foothills. The main county is Foping, the generally distributed county is Yang County, and only a small number of counties are Taibai, Ningshan, Zhouzhi, Liuba, Ningqiang, etc. Except for Wenxian County in Gansu Province, the rest of the Minshan Mountain System is distributed in Sichuan. The main counties in Sichuan are Pingwu, Qingchuan and Beichuan. They are generally distributed in Jiuzhaigou County, Songpan, Maoxian and other counties. A small number of counties are Anxian, Mianzhu, Pengzhou, Shifang and Dujiangyan City. The Qionglai Mountain System is mainly distributed in counties such as Baoxing, Wenchuan and Tianquan, and generally distributed in Dayi and Lushan. Counties with only a small amount of distribution include Qionglai, Chongzhou, Kangding, Luding, etc. In addition to Hongya and Mianning, which are generally distributed counties in the Xiaoxiang Ridge, there are only a few counties such as Yingjing, Shimian, Hanyuan, and Jiulong. In addition to a certain number in Mabian, Meigu and Yuexi, there are only a small number of counties in the Liangshan Mountains such as Ganluo, Ebian and Leibo.

Wild pandas live in dense forests. When they grow to a certain stage, they need to mate and give birth, that is, estrus, courtship, mating, pregnancy and child rearing. Pandas usually live alone, but during the breeding season, males and females are attracted to each other and begin various courtship activities in dense bamboo forests. Panda belongs to the multi-male competition system. They give birth to a small number of offspring in their lifetime, and the young are not likely to survive. Due to the highly specialized nature of pandas' reproductive capabilities and child-rearing behavior, panda population growth is very slow.

In captivity, female giant pandas reach sexual maturity around 4 years old, and male giant pandas reach sexual maturity around 6 years old. Giant pandas in the wild reach sexual maturity later. Except for the estrus and breeding season, giant pandas generally live alone at other times, and each has its own activity area.

Female giant pandas go into estrus once a year, each time lasting only 2-3 days. The estrus period usually occurs from March to May every year. Adult male and female giant pandas gradually gather in one place, get to know and attract each other, and communicate with each other mainly through odor and smell (by leaving scent marks and smell marks). At the climax of estrus, they communicate with each other through continuous bleating and bird calls. They use auditory and visual communication methods such as calls and waiting postures to express love and achieve mating. In giant panda mating venues, there are sometimes as many as 2-5 male giant pandas fighting and competing and successfully mating with the same female giant panda. There are also situations where only one male mates with one female giant panda. Mating occurs mostly on the ground, but also in trees. At the mating scene, there were also sub-adult giant pandas and giant pandas with weak mating abilities watching and learning. The male giant panda's estrus behavior occurs with the female giant panda's estrus behavior and also reaches its climax when it reaches its climax. In the same estrus season, a male giant panda can mate with multiple female giant pandas, and a female giant panda can also mate with multiple males. Therefore, marriage in the giant panda world is a polymale and polyfemale system. After mating is completed, the male and female giant pandas live separately again. Pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing are completed by the female giant panda alone.

A giant panda is giving birth to a mother. For the safety of her next generation, the giant panda has changed its docile temperament and is very wary. It does not allow any animals (including people) to approach its sacred and inviolable baby.

The gestation period of giant pandas lasts from 83 to 200 days. The cubs are usually born around August. The birth nest is usually a hidden tree hole or natural rock cave, with branches and hay carefully laid by the giant panda mother.

The most peculiar thing about giant panda breeding is that its newborns are quite immature when they are born, weighing only 0.1% of their mother's weight. The newborn cubs weigh very little, with an average birth weight of about 145 grams, about the size of an adult. One thousandth of the weight of a panda, the lightest one is 51 grams and the heaviest one is 225 grams. Taking care of children is a very difficult task for a female giant panda, which usually lasts 18 months and sometimes up to two years until her next child is born.

The skin of newborn giant pandas is pink with sparse white hair. In the first few weeks after its birth, a giant panda mother will hold her baby in her arms, warm and protect it, almost never leaving it, and hold it in her mouth when moving. At this point, captive giant pandas are the same as wild giant pandas. If you see a giant panda mother licking her baby, she is probably helping her baby defecate. During the period when giant pandas are raising cubs, the cry of the cub is a very important communication tool between mother and cub. When the cub wants to eat milk, defecate, is cold or overheated, or feels uncomfortable for other reasons, the cub will use different sounds to remind the mother. animals meet their different needs. After 1-2 weeks, the areas with black hair begin to become darker. Over the course of a month, they slowly grow black ears, eye sockets, legs and shoulder straps, becoming more like their mother. When the pups are 6-8 weeks old, they can open their eyes and start to grow teeth; after three months, they can crawl slowly.

In the wild, if twins are born (in captivity, nearly 50% of giant pandas give birth to twins), the giant panda mother usually ignores or rejects the weaker one, which ensures that at least one survives. In captivity, artificial breeding will be carried out and cub replacement technology will be used to try to ensure that all giant panda cubs survive.

The West first learned of the giant panda on 11 March 1869, 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 who went to live at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. In 1938, Floyd Tangier Smith captured and delivered five giant pandas to London, they arrived on 23 December aboard the SS Antenor. These five were the first on British soil and were transferred to London Zoo. One, named Grandma, only lasted a few days. She was taxidermized by E. Gerrard and Sons and sold to Leeds City Museum where she is currently on display to the public. Another, Ming, became London Zoo's first Giant Panda. Her skull is held by the Royal College of Surgeons of England.