Learn About Pandas the Giant Cat Bear

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Chi King

1. There are as few as 1,600 pandas left in the wild.

2. The giant panda has the largest molar teeth of any of the carnivores.

3. Although classed as a carnivore, the panda's diet consists almost exclusively of bamboo and it usually spends 14 hours a day eating.

4. Pandas stand on their head and forelegs to place scent high up on tree trunks.

5. The forepaws of the panda have an extra "thumb" which, when used in conjunction with its "forefingers," enables the panda to grasp even small bamboo shoots with precision.

6. The panda does not hibernate because it cannot store enough fat on a bamboo diet.

7. Pandas usually roam in the forest, but mothers will stay in caves or hollow trees when giving birth and remain there for three to four months after their babies are born.

8. The giant panda was unknown in the Western world until 1869, when a skin was found by Pére David, a French missionary.

9. Pandas are good at climbing trees. They can also swim.

10. Pandas like to live alone and will not often meet other pandas unless they get together during the mating season.

11. A day-old panda looks rather like a small white rat and weighs about 3.5 ounces, about 1/900 of the mother's body weight.

12. A female panda only comes into season for 72 hours a year.

13. Pandas can live for about 20 years in the wild.

14. Female pandas can start to give birth at 4-5 years old. A female can have 5-8 babies in the wild.

15. Pandas have occurred on earth for over 3 million years. They are called "living fossils" because many species that survived together with pandas in the past, such as stegodon (a big tusked elephant) and Chinese rhinos, are extinct already.

16. It is very difficult to see a panda in the wild because they live in thick bamboo, mostly in old-growth forests - their favorite habitat.

Giant pandas are by nature solitary animals, for most of the time avoiding direct contact with others of their own kind. But at crucial stages in their lives pandas, like all solitary mammals, are forced to spend time with each others. In spring males and females must seek each other out in order to mate. And in autumn the females give birth to a single cub which will be their constant companion for the next 18 months or more.

Giant pandas generally avoid contacting with each other in the wild. In their dense habitat their coat may help make animals conspicuous to each other and prevent them from surprising themselves by approaching too close to another of their own kind.

Pandas signify aggression by lowering their heads and staring at their opponents. To signal submissiveness, a panda will put its head between its front legs, often hind its eye-patches with its paws. This position is adopted by females during mating, and also by captive animals that are being harassed by humans--particularly vets with anaesthetic darts. At close range aggression is signaled by a swipe with a paw, or by a low-pitched growl or bark that will send an opponent scampering up the nearest tree.

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  by  Chi King 

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