Today we are going to check 18 interesting facts about pandas. A Panda’s official name is Giant Panda – facts show they are from China. Pandas are an endangered species. While Pandas once lived in many lowlands and mountains, today there are no lowland Pandas because they have been pushed out by farming and the clearing of native forests.
Pandas now live in broadleaf and coniferous forests which have an under-structure of bamboo. In these elevations of 5,000-10,000 feet, it is always cloudy and misty.
Pandas are bears and they are easily identified by their distinctive black and white coloring.
Pandas have a diet of 99% bamboo.
Pandas are comparable in size to black bears, between two and three feet high when standing on all four legs and are four to six feet long.
Male Pandas weigh up to 250 pounds while females are under 220 pounds.
A Panda in the wild has to eat 20-40 pounds of bamboo a day and spends up to 16 hours a day searching it out.
Pandas reach maturity between four and eight years of age and can breed for 15-16 years. One of the reasons it is difficult to increase the population of Pandas is that they only have one breeding period a year of 24-36 hours.
The gestation period for a Panda is three to four months.
One of the most interesting Panda facts is that at birth a Panda cub only weighs 3-5 ounces, the smallest baby in relation to its mother’s size in the animal world.
Other young Panda facts are that the cub is completely helpless and totally dependent on its mother. Cubs are 6-8 weeks old before they open their eyes and don’t walk until around three months of age. Cubs nurse for nine months to a year.
While Pandas do drink from mountain streams, the bamboo they eat provides them with the majority of their water needs, bamboo being fifty-percent water.
Giant Pandas now only live in three provinces in China.
There are only around 1600 Pandas left in the world, with 980 in reserves, mainly in China.
Probably one of the best known Panda facts in the United States is that then President Richard Nixon was given two Pandas, a male and a female, in 1972 as a gift of friendship from China. These two Pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing both died in the 1990s without producing any offspring who lived. The male, Hsing-Hsing lived to be 28 years old. They both lived out their lives in the Washington Zoo.
In the wild a Panda’s home territory is one square mile.
There is also a Red Panda, which looks more like a raccoon, growing only two feet high and weighing 6-12 pounds. This small Panda lives in China, Tibet, Nepal, Burma and India.
As the logo of the World Wildlife Federation, the giant Panda has become a symbol of endangered species and international wildlife conservation.
Human beings are the biggest threat to Pandas. In spite of being endangered, poaching of Pandas continues.
