Panda Facts

Panda Facts
Panda Panda belongs to the family of bears. Pandas live in the bamboo forest of China, but loss of natural habitat and poaching pushed pandas to the brink of extinction. These beautiful animals are critically endangered with just 1000 pandas left in the wild.
Interesting Panda Facts:
Panda is a symbol of peace in China. During the battles in the past, Chinese would raise a flags with panda if they wanted to call a truce or to stop a battle. Panda is also a symbol of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), international agency that works on the protection of endangered animals.
Bamboo represents 99% of panda's diet. Panda spends 14-16 hours per day in eating.
Panda can peel and eat bamboo stick in 40 seconds. They sit during the meal.
Pandas have seven time bigger teeth than humans. Big teeth facilitate chewing of bamboo.
Panda uses 11 different sounds to communicate. Four of them are used during a mating season.
Females ovulate once per year and have just a couple of days to make a baby. After mating is completed, female will chase the male from her territory.
Female take care of cub on her own. Usually one baby is born. In the case of twins, mother will ignore weaker cub due to lack of energy needed for care of two babies.
When it is born, panda cub weighs only 5 ounces. Mother is 900 times heavier than the cub and it can crush the cub accidentally.
Pandas are solitary animals (live on their own). They demand large portion of the forest just for themselves because they don't have enough energy to compete with other pandas for food, territory and mates.
Around 240 pandas in the world live in captivity. Pandas are the most expensive zoo animals. They are 5 times more expensive than elephants, because of the huge amount of bamboo they demand on a daily basis.
Scientists are not sure why panda's fur is colored in such a unique way. Color of the skin is specific also. Skin is black under the black fur and pink under the white fur.
Due to their large size, panda don't have natural enemies. Only small cubs and old pandas can be potential meal of the snow leopard.
Pandas will begin to climb the trees at very young age (before their first birthday). They will become proficient in time.
Pandas don't hibernate like other bears.
In the wild panda lives around 20 years. In captivity, panda may live 25-30 years.


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