Giant Panda

The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, "black-and-white cat-foot"; Chinese: 大熊貓, Hanyu Pinyin: Dàxióngmāo) is a mammal classified in the bear family, Ursidae, native to central-western and southwestern China. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though belonging to the order Carnivora, the panda has a diet which is 99% bamboo. Pandas may eat other foods such as honey, eggs, fish and yams.

The Giant Panda is an endangered animal; an estimated 2,000 pandas live in the wild and over 180 were reported to live in captivity by August 2006 in mainland China (another source by the end of 2006 put the figure for China at 22), with twenty pandas living outside of China. Reports show that the numbers of wild panda are on the rise.

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. Also, it is usually depicted reclining peacefully eating bamboo, as opposed to hunting, which adds to its image of innocence. Though the giant panda is often assumed docile because of their cuteness, they have been known to attack humans, usually assumed to be out of irritation rather than predatory behavior. Research shows that in cases in which its offspring may be under threat, the panda can and most often will react violently.

The giant panda is a living fossil.

The Giant Panda has a black-and-white coat. Adults measure around 1.5 m long and around 75 cm tall at the shoulder. Males can weigh up to 115 kg (253 pounds). Females are generally smaller than males, and can occasionally weigh up to 100 kg (220 pounds). Giant Pandas live in mountainous regions, such as Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi, and Tibet. While the Chinese dragon has been historically a national emblem for China, since the latter half of the 20th century the Giant Panda has also become a national emblem for China. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins.

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 the bamboo while eating. Stephen Jay Gould wrote an essay about this, then used the title The Panda's Thumb for a book of essays concerned with evolution, punctuated equilibrium, intelligent design, the Piltdown Man hoax, Down's Syndrome, and the relationship between dinosaurs and birds among others.

It also has a short tail, approximately 15 cm long. Giant Pandas can usually live to be 20-30 years old while living in captivity.

Until recently, scientists thought giant pandas spent most of their lives alone, with males and females meeting only during the breeding season. Recent studies paint a different picture, in which small groups of pandas share a large territory and sometimes meet outside the breeding season.

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

Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, pandas still have the digestive system of a carnivore and do not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently, and thus derive little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 20 to 30 pounds of bamboo shoots a day. Because pandas consume a diet low in nutrition, it is important that they keep their digestive tract full.

As the average temperature of the region has increased, the panda has pushed its habitat to a higher altitude and limited available space. Furthermore, the timber profit gained from harvesting bamboo has destroyed a significant portion of the food supply for the wild panda. Because of all these elements the population of wild pandas decreased by 50 percent from 1973-1984 in six areas of Asia, all of them in China.

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. Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit. Bamboo leaves contain the highest protein levels; stems have less.

Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, pandas must have a least two different species available in their range to avoid starvation. The panda's round face is an adaptation to its bamboo diet. Their powerful jaw muscles attach from the top of the head to the jaw. Large molars crush and grind fibrous plant material. While primarily herbivorous, the panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth, and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available. In captivity, zoos typically maintain the pandas' bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements.

For many decades the precise taxonomic classification of the panda was under debate as both the giant panda and the distantly related red panda share characteristics of both bears and raccoons. However, genetic testing suggests that giant pandas are true bears and part of the Ursidae family, though they differentiated early in history from the main ursine stock. The giant panda's closest ursine relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. (Disagreement still remains about whether or not the red panda belongs in Ursidae, the raccoon family Procyonidae, or in its own family, Ailuridae.)

The red panda and the giant panda, although completely different in appearance, share several features. They both live in the same habitat, they both live on a similar bamboo diet and they both share a unique enlarged bone called the pseudo thumb, which allows them to grip the bamboo shoots they eat.

Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999Two subspecies of giant panda have been recognized on the basis of distinct cranial measurements, color patterns, and population genetics (Wan et al., 2005).

Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca consists of most extant populations of panda. These animals are principally found in Sichuan and display the typical stark black and white contrasting colors.
Qinling Panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis is restricted to the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi at elevations of 1300–3000 m. The typical black and white pattern of Sichuan Pandas is replaced with a dark brown versus light brown pattern. The skull of A. m. qinlingensis is smaller than its relatives and it has larger molars.

Unlike many other animals in ancient China, pandas were rarely thought to have medical uses. In the past, pandas were thought to be rare and noble creatures; the mother of Emperor Wen of Han was buried with a panda skull in her tomb. Emperor Taizong of Tang was said to have given Japan two pandas and a sheet of panda skin as a sign of goodwill.

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 11 March 1869. 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 foreigners 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. These activities were halted in 1937 because of wars; and for the next half of the century, the West knew little of pandas.

Loans of giant pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China in the 1970s as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the PRC and the West. This practice has been termed "Panda Diplomacy".

By the year 1984, however, pandas were no longer used as agents of diplomacy. Instead, China began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans. The standard loan terms include a fee of up to US$ 1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the People's Republic of China. Since 1998, due to a WWF lawsuit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda if the zoo can ensure that China will channel more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for wild pandas and their habitat.

In May 2005, the People's Republic of China offered Taiwan (Republic of China) two pandas as a gift. This proposed gift was met by polarized opinions from Taiwan due to complications stemming from cross-strait relations. So far Taiwan has not accepted the offer.
 

Giant Panda Video

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

Pandas have been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times and by foreigners since they were introduced to the West. 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. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. 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.

Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining pandas, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge in ecology. 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. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun controls and moving residents out of the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With the ensued efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species.

In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new hi-tech method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believed that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago.

Giant pandas are among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering 7 natural reserves, was inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2006.0

Contrary to popular belief, Giant pandas do not reproduce slowly. Studies have shown that wild pandas reproduce as well as North American brown bears. A female panda may have 2-3 cubs in a lifetime, on average. Growth is slow and pandas may not reach sexual maturity until they are five to seven years old. The mating season usually takes place from mid-March to mid-May. During this time, two to five males can compete for one female; the male with the highest rank gets the female. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization.

The whole gestation period ranges from 83 to 163 days, with 135 days being the average. Baby pandas weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900th of the mother’s weight. Usually, the female panda gives birth to one or two panda cubs. Since baby pandas are born very small and helpless, they need the mother’s undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs. She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping with raising the cub.

When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless and blind. It nurses from its mother's breast 6–14 times a day for up to 30 minutes each time. For three to four hours, the mother might leave the den to feed, which leaves the panda cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. 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. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub’s fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days and the mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. 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. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years.

Breeders and biologists often experience difficulty in inducing captive pandas to mate, threatening their already diminished population. This problem may stem from the captive bears' lack of experience. In an attempt to remedy this, some keepers in China and Thailand have shown their subjects videos containing footage of mating pandas.  In some cases, the bears have been sufficiently stimulated from the videos to engage in reproductive activity. It is not likely that the animals actually learn mating behaviors from the video; rather, scientists believe that hearing the associated sounds has a stimulating effect on the bears exposed to it.