by Karen Ellis

Created on: July 06, 2008

The giant panda is widely recognizable with it's slow movements and distinctive black and white markings. However, unless you live in China or attend a zoo you aren't likely to see them face to face. They are commonly known as panda bear, bamboo bear or the most common of the twenty names used in China as daxiongmao or "large cat bear." In fact, it's genus and species name, ailuropoda melanoleuca, means "cat feet black white."

Appearance

The most common panda has fuzzy black and white fur, yet there is a lesser known red panda. He is also a very appealing animal as well as a bamboo eater but differs from the giant panda in that he is redish-brown with white facial tear markings and just about the size of a house cat.

The adult giant panda will grow to between five and six feet tall and weigh in at up to 350 pounds, males weighing in larger than females. The black and white bears have thick, course fur with a wool-like undercoat. It is oily, which is a protective defense against the seasonally cold climate of his natural habitat. They have a life span of up to twenty-five years. They have rounded ears, a large body, short tail and plantigrade feet (toe and heal make contact with ground when walking). It is speculated that its coloring acts as a camouflage in their natural forested and snowy habitat.

Behavior

Although, pandas may climb into tree hollows or rock crevices for protection against climate, they do not make dens usually but are natural roamers. As they do not hibernate, but move to a warmer climate when food is scarce and it becomes too cold. They are loners with their defined territories of 1.5 to 2.5 square miles each within Qinling Mountains and the Sichuan Province bamboo forests in China.

Solitary animals, they are social primarily during mating only, after which the male leaves and the cub is raised by the mother alone the next two years.

Food

Interestingly, pandas are classified as carnivores and indeed their digestive system attests to the fact. Yet, they live on a diet of almost completely bamboo. Twenty to thirty pounds of bamboo shoots are ingested by an adult panda each day. Because of the amount of human harvested bamboo, its habitat has been cut in half. Because the panda diet is low in nutrition, their digestive tract must stay full, of at least two of the twenty of the twenty-five species of bamboo found in their natural habitat.

Unfortunately, human encroachment on that habitat has forced pandas to move to a higher elevation with limited space

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