Panda, lazy but cute

Panda, lazy but cute 

Panda an animal with a combination of black and white color. Panda is a kind of Bear. It is only found in south-central China. Panda is a very lazy animal. They just eat and sleep. They live on Bamboo. Every animal thinks about what to eat at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But Panda doesn’t have any problem. They just eat Bamboo, bamboo, and only bamboo. A panda eats spending half of its day, a full 12 hours out of 24 hours. An adult panda eats 28 pounds of bamboo per day. The bamboo tree contains a low amount of nutrients that is why they panda need to eat a lot of bamboos every day. The average weight of a female panda is 70-100 kg and height are 60-90 cm at the shoulder. And an adult male panda can be 10% larger and 20% heavier than females.

The biological name of the panda is Ailuropoda Melanoleuca. Scientist uses chemical signature from teeth and bones of both modern and ancient pandas. After the research scientist came to know that bears their hyper dependence on bamboo and it is apparent in them from 4000-5000 years ago. That’s roughly 2 million years later than previously assumed from molecular and paleontological data.

Panda lives alone most of the time. They don’t like to be around another panda for long. They make their own territory by using their waxy scent marker which comes from the scent gland underneath their tail. On average, the territory of a panda is about 1.9 square miles. According to the Sa Diego Zoo, they also use their scent to tell the sex, age, reproductive condition, social status and more. The only time that panda comes closer to one another in springtime when the mating season starts. Male use their smelling ability to find out a female when they are ready to mate. Females mate every two or three years. A female can give birth one or two cubs at a time. But in most of the cases, the second cub does not survive. The average gestation of a female panda is about 130 to 135 and ranges between 100 to 180 days. After birth, the cubs are completely blind for about 50-60 days. Cubs start eating bamboo between 7-9 months of age and need nursing until 18 months. 

Fuwen Wei, an ecologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Zoology in Beijing says, “It has been widely accepted that giant pandas have exclusively fed in bamboo for a long time, but our results show the opposite.” Fuwen Wei’s piece made us excited.

Wei and some colleagues try to compare some relative isotopes and atoms of the same element but neurons numbers in the nucleus are different from pandas and some fossil animals. The animal cell contains different amounts of heavy and light isotopes of nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen that are then transferred into bones, teeth, nails, and hair. The ration of isotopes presents on an animal body depends on the climate in which the animal lives, food chain and animals’ position.

Vertebrate Paleontologist Larisa DeSantis at Vanderbilt University in Nashville who was not involved in the study says, “Proxies like isotopes are actually able to capture what an animal is doing during its lifetime.”

Because of eating bamboo, the modern panda has the lowest ration of heavy-to-light nitrogen isotopes than other bear species.” Said Wei and his teammate.

The bad effects of climate change are increasing threats to them. They are not away from the threats of extinction. As humans are the reason behind their extinction, it is their responsibility to save them. Panda is a major contributor to the ecological system where they belong. They influence the bamboo vegetation and the local people depending on bamboos. Other animals like golden snub-nosed monkey, takin and crested ibis are interconnected in the ecosystem of the panda. So, for the broader benefits of the encircling ecology, they should be taken care of.