31 Facts About Pandas To Confirm Their Cuteness

Giant pandas may be seen in Qinling and Sichuan. Only 18.5 percent of giant pandas are found in the Qinling region. The giant pandas' appearance, colors, and body shapes differ between Sichuan and the Qinling Mountains because to differences in the soil, temperature, and vegetation in each region.
The Sichuan big panda has a head that resembles a bear, whereas the Qinling huge panda has a smaller skull and broader fangs, giving it more of a catlike appearance.
The two pandas share the same origin, but they are secluded from one another by a vast river, mountains, and human activity. According to paleontologists, they lost touch 50,000 years ago, at which point they started evolving and reproducing on their own.

The giant panda lives alone. They have their own area in the wild, and they defend it from other pandas. That's because big pandas eat bamboo, which eliminates the necessity for coordinated hunting. To achieve their nutritional requirements, they must consume a lot of bamboo. Conflict over access to adequate bamboo would prevent giant pandas from coexisting peacefully in groups, which would be detrimental to their overall survival.
A panda typically need its own bamboo forest, which is 3–8 square kilometers (1-3 square miles) in size, to exist.

Their number has increased to about 2,200 as a result of conservation initiatives to safeguard giant pandas. There are now 1,864 giant pandas living in the wild and 422 of them were born in captivity. This has changed their threat level from "endangered" to "vulnerable".

Giant pandas are superb tree climbers and swimmers. Giant panda babies begin to climb about 5 months old, often by climbing on their mother.

A panda's diet is 99% vegetarian, consisting primarily of bamboo roots, stems, shoots, and leaves. However, because they have a carnivorous digestive system, the remaining 1% of their diet might include eggs, small animals, and carrion. Pandas have also been observed foraging on pumpkin, kidney beans, wheat, and domestic pig chow in farms.

Because of their bamboo-based diet, giant pandas cannot store enough fat to hibernate through the winter.
The cold is not a fear for pandas, though. They may be seen strolling through bamboo forests covered in heavy snow even in temperatures as low as -4°C (25°F).

In terms of lifespan, a panda year is comparable to around three human years. Giant pandas may live up to 25 or 30 years in captivity and 18 to 20 years in the wild. The 38 years and four months old giant panda known as Xinxing (also known as "New Star") lived at the Chongqing Zoo (1982–2020). That is the same as 115 years in human years.

The distinctive black-and-white markings of the giant panda serve two purposes: concealment and communication. The panda's face, neck, belly, and rump are all white to help it conceal in snowy environments. The dark arms and legs help it camouflage in the shade.

Pandas may often climb a tree backwards with their hindfeet until they're in a full handstand upside down, allowing them to leave their smell higher up.

One feature of Panda Bears that gives them the nickname "Cat-foot" is that their eyes are slits like cat eyes. They have slits for pupils rather than spherical pupils like other bears. This adaptation allows them to see well at night. This is advantageous since they are constantly looking for food, even at night.

Other animals' food stays in the stomach for more than a day, whereas bamboo in the intestines of giant pandas only stays for 8 to 12 hours, with the shortest bamboo shoots. In the panda home, you may observe pandas eating and pooping at the same time.

The sixth "finger" of a panda resembles a human thumb. In reality, it is an unique wrist bone or opposable paw heel with powerful muscles but no moveable joints that serves the same purpose as a thumb and can hold food.

Giant pandas use a variety of methods to mark their territory, including rubbing their smell glands on tree bark and peeing on it. A typical guideline among pandas is that they are stronger the higher they can place their scent marks on a tree.

Giant panda cubs can spend up to three years with their moms before venturing out on their own.

While pandas in captivity are more likely to produce twins, wild pandas often only have one child. If a mother panda has two babies in the wild, she will only feed the one she perceives as being stronger. The other is left on its own to manage.
 
A newborn cub is incredibly frail, which is why this is the case. At roughly 12 months of age, cubs begin eating bamboo, but up until that point, they are entirely reliant on their mother. Therefore, in the wild, mother pandas lack the milk and energy needed to care for two babies.

Only two to three days each time, in March to May on average each year, the female giant pandas go into heat. An average pregnancy lasts five months.
 
While male giant pandas would leave scent markers as a sign to attract female giant pandas, female giant pandas will make distinctive noises like baa, dog bark, or cow bark during their reproductive time in the wild.

Despite a similar name, giant pandas belong to the bear family Ursidae, whereas red pandas are the sole extant members of their taxonomic family, Ailuridae.

Instead of giving birth at the conclusion of a pseudopregnancy, which imitates a true pregnancy, the hormones and behaviors of a giant panda revert to normal. There are estimates that Mei Xiang of Smithsonian's National Zoo had at least six false pregnancies.

The majority of giant pandas in the world are on loan from China, and cubs born outside of China must be transferred to the Chinese breeding program in order to increase the gene pool.

After First Lady Patricia Nixon expressed her admiration for them at a banquet in Beijing, China, in 1972, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai sent them as a gift to the American people.

Its bite was in third place among the examined live species with a BFQ (Bite Force Quotient) of 151. Giant Panda is one of the few carnivores that primarily feed on vegetation, specifically bamboo, a fibrously stiff plant that requires vigorous chewing. The panda's biting force has little to do with the size of its meal.

The digestive tract of a giant panda is more like that of a carnivore than a herbivore, and a lot of the food it consumes is passed on as waste.

The Zoo's adult panda pair, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, arrived in 2000. A contract with the China Wildlife Conservation Association stipulates that the couple and their youngster would remain at the zoo until 2023.