Please, can you please give me more information on Giant Pandas for a project of mine?

Answer 1

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/

http://www.kidsplanet.org/factsheets/giant_panda.html


http://www.giantpandabear.com/



http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/PandaFacts/default.cfm

http://www.animalinfo.org/species/carnivor/ailumela.htm

Answer 2

Try wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_panda

You'll also find more info at the Smithsonian: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/

Good luck!

Answer 3

The Giant Panda has a very distinctive 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 an informal national emblem for China. Its image appears on a large number of modern Chinese commemorative silver, gold, and platinum coins.

The Giant Panda has an unusual 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 and intelligent design. The Giant Panda 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.[citation needed]

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


Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
Pandas eating bamboo at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. This is an evolutionarily recent adaptation. Pandas lack the proper enzymes to digest bamboo efficiently, and thus derive little energy and little protein from it. The pandas diet is 99% bambooo and has the digestive system of a carnivore. The average Giant Panda eats as much as 20 to 30 pounds of bamboo shoots a day.

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 they 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 bear relative is the Spectacled Bear of South America. (Disagreement remains about whether or not the red panda belongs in Ursidae; the raccoon family, Procyonidae; or in its own family, Ailuridae.)


Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999
Hua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999

Two 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.

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[7] 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.
Gao Gao, an adult male giant panda at San Diego Zoo
Gao Gao, an adult male giant panda at San Diego Zoo



Main article: Panda diplomacy

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.[2]



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.
Close up of a baby 7-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China.
Close up of a baby 7-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China.

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.[2]

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.[8][9]



Contrary to popular belief, Giant pandas do not reproduce slowly. Recent studies have shown that wild pandas reproduce as well as North American brown bears.[10] 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, naked 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.