if there’s one animal that lives up to
the saying you are what you eat it’s
probably the giant panda
nearly every aspect of a panda’s life
revolves around bamboo
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giant pandas eat
and eat and eat
pandas can spend more than half of each
day eating
to understand why pandas eat so much you
need to look more closely at what they
eat
bamboo a giant woody grass is a very
poor nutritional source low in protein
and high in fiber that pandas can’t
digest well
yet bamboo comprises 99
of a pandas diet to compensate pandas
need to eat 20 to 40 pounds a day
pandas have quite a bit in common with
carnivores
a panda’s digestive system is more
closely related to that of a carnivore
than an herbivore which explains why
they don’t digest plants very well
fortunately they have other adaptations
that help them chow down on bamboo
stocks including large powerful jaws
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when they’re not eating pandas rest
and rest and poop
and poop
since they don’t digest bamboo very well
pandas end up passing a lot of it as
waste which unsurprisingly contains a
lot of undigested bamboo bits
pandas defecate more than 100 times a
day
producing more than 40 pounds of waste
pandas even go number two while they’re
napping
and they spend a lot of time napping as
a way to compensate for their low energy
diet
pandas have tiny cubs because of their
poor diet
baby giant pandas are born blind
helpless and tiny weighing just five
ounces or about one thousandth the size
of their mom
of all placental mammals panda cubs are
the tiniest in comparison to their
mother
why so small
the mother’s diet plays a role
due to her low metabolism a panda mother
has a relatively low blood oxygen level
so the cub can get more oxygen outside
the womb
panda’s black and white fur may help
them camouflage
once again we can look at a panda’s diet
to help understand why its fur is the
color it is
pandas don’t store enough fat to
hibernate like other bears so they have
to keep eating bamboo all year round
and since they’re always roaming in
search of bamboo
pandas are unable to shed their fur
quickly enough to match their background
like other animals can
so their black and white pattern may be
sort of a compromise
white fur allows them to blend into
snowy backgrounds black fur allows them
to blend into shady forest backgrounds
historically pandas inhabited a much
wider range than they do today and faced
multiple predators so at the time they
may have relied more on their camouflage
ability
today pandas are not at as high risk
from predators but rather from a loss of
bamboo
the good news is that the giant pandas
conservation status was recently
upgraded from endangered to vulnerable
an estimated
1850 pandas remain in the wild in china
an increase of 17
over the past decade
however pandas still face significant
threats tied closely to their food
source
human development has driven pandas into
isolated fragmented mountain regions
restricting their access to bamboo
additionally climate change threatens to
eliminate more than a third of the
bamboo habitat that pandas rely on by
the end of the century
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