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Pandas For centuries, the giant panda has been considered to be very special and was kept in captivity as the pet of ancient Chinese emperors. Since its introduction to the western world in 1869 by a French missionary who shipped back a pelt to the Museum of Natural History in Paris, it has become one of the most revered animals in the world. The giant panda is a large mammal, which has the same general size and shape of the American black bear and the Asiatic black bear. In general, adult giant pandas and have a length of 160 to 180 centimeters (5 1 / 4 to 6 feet).
The weight of an adult male giant panda is normally between 80 and 125 kilograms (176 and 276 pounds) with males typically weighing about 10 % to 20 % more than females. With few natural enemies other than man, the lifespan of giant pandas in the wild is thought to be twenty-five years or more. The giant panda itself appeared suddenly during the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene, perhaps no more than two to three million years ago. Panda fossils have been found in Burma, Vietnam, and particularly in early in eastern China, as far north as Beijing. The giant panda only exists at present in several small areas located in inland China (see map). The habitat, suitable for the bamboo on which it survives, is a cold, damp coniferous forest.
The elevation ranges from 1, 200 to 3, 400 metres (4, 000 to 11, 000 feet) high. In most of the areas in which they still roam wild, they must compete with farmers who farm the river valleys and the lower slopes of the mountains. It is estimated that there are somewhere around 700 and 1, 000 giant pandas still alive in the wild. Because of their reliance on bamboo as their primary food, they will remain in significant danger unless their present habitat is expanded.
The differing varieties of bamboo go through periodic die-offs as part of their renewal cycle. Without the ability to move to new, unaffected areas, starvation and death will certainly occur for the giant panda. Such die-offs of the bamboo also put the giant pandas in more direct contact with farmers and poachers as the bears try to find new areas in which to feed. Giant pandas are classed as bears by most scientists.
Until recently, giant pandas were grouped with raccoons and lesser pandas (i. e. , the Procyonidae (raccoon) family). This decision was based primarily on physiological evidence. In the late 1980 s, DNA/serological studies clearly established that giant pandas are clearly more bear than raccoon.
Some scientists want to place giant pandas in their own grouping but for most bear researchers, this does not seem warranted. By nature solitary animals, giant pandas, for most of the time, avoid 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 other. 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.
The head of the giant panda is very large and has developed large molars, which are specifically designed to crush fibrous plant material. It has powerful muscles extending from the top of its head to the jaws, giving it the capacity to crush hard, tough stalks (see diagrams). Even the throat of the giant panda has undergone significant evolution as the esophagus has a tough, horny lining to protect the bear from injury due to bamboo splinters. The stomach is similarly protected with its thick muscular wall linings. Giant pandas have forepaws which are extremely flexible. Evolution has given them an enlarged wrist bone (the radial sesam oid) that works in the manner of an opposable thumb (see diagram).
This highly functional adaptation allows the giant panda to manipulate their primary food source, bamboo stems and leaves, with dexterity and precision. The hind feet of the giant panda lack the heel pad found in the other seven bear species. While members of the order Carnivora, giant pandas have evolved almost exclusively into vegetarians with accompanying changes in their dental structure (diagram) and, also, to a lesser degree, their digestive tract. Their short intestine is still not sufficiently developed to remove all of the available nutrients from the fibrous bamboo on which they feed.
The basic fur colour of the giant panda is white with black eye patches, ears, legs, feet, chest, and shoulders. Within its natural environment (the deep forest and, at upper elevations, snow and rock), its mottled colouring provides camouflage. There is also speculation that its striking colour pattern may be a clear message to other pandas to stay away as the giant panda is an extremely solitary animal. The fur of the giant panda is thick and coarse.
It consists of a coarse outer layer and a very dense, wooly-like underfur. To the touch, the fur feels oily. This oily protective coating helps protects giant pandas from the cool and damp climate in which the bear lives. Mating begins in late-March and continues on into May. Similar to other bear species, the female stays in heat for only a short time, normally two to seven days. Unlike any other bear, males will often roar to announce their presence to receptive females.
Females may mate with several males during the breeding season. Female giant pandas do not normally mature until they are 5 to 7 years of age. Copulation normally takes place in a manner similar to members of the canine family. Through a remarkable process referred to as delayed implantation, the fertilized ovum divides a few times and then floats free within the uterus for a few months with its development arrested. Sometime around June or July, the embryo will attach itself to the uterine wall and after a gestation period of eight weeks (August or September), the giant panda female will enter a rock cavity or hollow tree to deliver one or two cubs. At birth, the cubs are blind and very tiny.
They weigh from 90 to 130 grams (3 to 4 + ounces). The tiny (about the size of chipmunks) newborn cubs are covered with a fine white fur but acquire the typical giant panda fur coloration within a month of their birth. The mother will use the maternity den for a month to a month and a half. Cradling the newborn cub in her forepaws, the mother will hold the cub so that it is able to suckle similar to a human mother nursing her child. The female regularly leaves the den for two to three hours to forage on nearby bamboo.
Giant panda cubs are eating bamboo by the time they are 6 months old and are fully weaned by the time they are 9 months of age. At one year of age, the cubs normally weigh about 35 kilograms (75 pounds). Giant panda cubs are extremely vulnerable while the mother is away feeding on bamboo. During this time, the newborn is subject to predation by any number of predators.
The cubs will stay with the mother for the entire first year to year and a half. Normally they are driven off by their mother as she prepares to breed once more. The survival of giant panda cubs is totally dependent on the skill of the mother in both protecting them and teaching them the basics of what to eat, where and how to get it, how to cope with danger and all the other skills of living in the wild. The main threat to the survival of the pandas is the destruction of their habitat. Cattle, sheep and goats graze on any emerging seedlings and prevent regeneration of the forest, and their hooves loosen the thin mountain soil. In the last 30 years Sichuan has lost some 30 percent of its forests, and more than half of the natural forest vegetation has been destroyed or disturbed so badly that it no longer provides suitable panda habitat.
Whatever the number of pandas surviving in the wild, it is quite clear that the giant panda will become extinct in the next century unless more steps are taken to protect its habitat. It is estimated that the giant pandas now exist in about 35 isolated populations and that most of these contain fewer than 20 individuals. To ensure the survival of pandas, the Chinese government issued a National Conservation Management Plan for the Giant Panda and its Habitat The Plan has Contents: + Reduction of human activities in the panda habitat + Removal of human settlements + Modification of forestry operations + Control of poaching + Rehabilitation of habitat + Management of bamboo habitat + Extension of the panda Reserve system + Achieving outbreeding between panda populations + Maintaining a captive population + Release of captive-born pandas into the wild
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