- Pandas are almost becoming extinct. They are endangered because people
are cutting down the bamboo that pandas eat to make farms.
- Pandas can eat more than 10,000 kilograms of bamboo a day.
- The mother panda can only take care of the baby panda for half a year
(6 months).
- People can't tell if a baby panda is a girl or a boy for four years.
- The mother panda only has one baby every two years.
- Pandas live in China on the mountainsides.
- If all the bamboo is covered in snow the pandas will eat little mice
or uncovered leaves.
- Pandas are pink when they are born.
- Panda mothers nurse their babies. Pandas are mammals.
- If the mother panda has two babies she can only take care of one baby.
- If the pandas don't have any bamboo to eat they will die.
- An adult panda is typically 1.5 meters long (4 - 5 feet) and weighs
about 75 to 135 kilograms (165 to 353 pounds).
- Males are 10% to 20% heavier than females. Pandas live between 18
to 25 years in the wild.
- Pandas have large molars and large jaw muscles extending from their
jaw to the top of their head that crush the fibrous plant material and
tough stalks of their main food, bamboo.
- Pandas are most active at twilight and night
- Their pupils have vertical slits, like snakes and many nocturnal animals,
which allow them to see better at night.
- Flexible forepaws and an enlarged wrist bone that works as an opposable
thumb are useful for handling bamboo.
- Hairs on the soles of their feet give them traction and reduce heat
loss on ice and snow.
- Pandas can climb trees. Usually, however, only cubs or females in
heat climb trees.
- The panda's coat has two layers: a coarse outer layer and a dense,
wooly under layer. Their fur is slightly oily which prevents water penetration
in the cool, damp climate where the pandas live.
- Pandas are mostly with white with black across their shoulders; on
their arms, legs, and ears; and around their eyes
- Pandas are in the carnivore family and, for the most part, have the
digestive system of a carnivore.
- Although, ninety-five to ninety-nine percent of the pandas' diet
is bamboo, they also eat flowers, vines, mushroom, grass, fish, and
small rodents.
- They eat for 10 to 16 hours per day and cover over one kilometer
a day while eating.
- When they are not eating, pandas often conserve energy by sleeping.
- Pandas excrete up to 40 kilograms (88 pounds) per day. Because their
feces eliminate more water than their food brings in, they usually drink
at least once per day.
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