On the world map there are very few places where the panda lives. At the mention of this animal, the imagination draws the image of a funny teddy bear, but there are other animals with the same name.
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Where do pandas live in the wild
The ancestors of modern pandas could be found in different parts of Eurasia, even in the British Isles. Over time, the animal population gradually declined. The reason for the unpleasant trend was that the number of bamboo groves decreased annually. Animals began to suffer from a lack of tasty food, because bamboo is their main food.
Panda is the common name for two completely dissimilar animals from different families:
- The Big Panda is a snow-white bamboo bear well-publicized in the media. There is also a subspecies of animal white-brown color. The large panda is considered to be a bear family. According to experts, it is with representatives of this type of living creatures that they are most genetically similar. Animals grow to 1.2-1.8 meters, and their weight ranges from 20 to 160 kg. In the wild world, a large panda lives in Sichuan, a province in the center of the PRC, as well as in some other mountainous regions of Tibet. The animal is in the Red Book of the international standard, and is considered a vulnerable species.
- The small (red) panda is the only modern representative of the panda family. The animals are slightly larger in size than a cat, and their weight is on average 3.7-6 kg. The coat of a small panda is dark red, brown or blackish. On the head are white areas in the form of a mask, which are unique for each animal. The red panda lives in Nepal, China, Bhutan, India and Myanmar.It also refers to rare species and is in the Red Book.
In what countries do pandas live, it’s easy to understand. In the wild, cute animals can be found in inaccessible bamboo forests. And such sites remained only in some regions of East Asia.
Big and small panda lifestyle
Where bamboo is, there pandas are the most basic rule of life for these cute creatures:
- During the summer heat, bamboo bears prefer to choose high mountain areas for their habitat where the air temperature is lower. They rise in the mountains to a height of 4 km. Females more often settle in inaccessible places in order to easily hide from various threats with the cub. The distribution range of males is wider. In cold weather, large pandas withstand fairly low temperatures due to the thick fur. They do not fall into hibernation.
- Red panda activity usually manifests in the twilight period. In the daytime, she rests, hiding from danger in the crown of bamboo or in a hollow. The animals deftly move through the trees, but they are not able to move quickly on the ground.
Power Features
The pandas stomach is ideally suited to coarse plant foods:
- For a day, already grown individuals of the big panda absorb up to 30 kg of plant food. A pair of adult bamboo bears in nature needs a bamboo plot of about 3 thousand hectares to fully satisfy the need for plant food.
- In the spring-summer period, the diet of the panda is 95% bamboo. One animal eats about 4 kg of tender stems and about 1.5 kg of leaves of this plant per day. In winter, there is less bamboo, and there is more other food in the diet of the red panda - mushrooms, berries, fruits, bird eggs and small rodents.
What does a bamboo bear eat?
The big panda is an omnivorous representative of the animal world, but the stems and leaves of bamboo make up the bulk of its diet. Without a favorite treat, a bamboo bear will not survive. They absorb food for about twelve hours a day. Sometimes in nature there is a mass death of large plantations of bamboo groves after flowering. In this case, pandas die of hunger.
The diet of the bamboo bear also contains small birds and animals, various insects, eggs, carrion. Panda needs to eat animal food from time to time so that the body receives the necessary dose of protein. The food of clubfoot in the zoo is more diverse. They are given carrots, apples, sugarcane, special nutritious briquettes, liquid rice porridge and some other products.
Reproduction and longevity
The loving red panda often suffers from poachers in the natural habitat. In the natural environment, the lifespan of animals is 8-10 years. It is known about the case when the small panda in captivity lived up to the age of eighteen. They adapt to existence in zoos without any problems and breed easily there.
The puberty of young red pandas occurs at 1.5 years, but they are ready for the birth of offspring only at the age of 2-3. In the litter, most often one or two blind babies, whose weight reaches about 100 g. Young growth has been with the mother for quite some time. Sometimes young individuals begin independent life only a year after birth, when their mother has new cubs.
In a large panda, maturity occurs at 4-8 years of age. The female brings 1-2 babies no more than once every two years, so the reproduction of the animal population is slow. Young clubfoots are covered with completely white hair, the weight of the newborns is no more than 130 g. The mother takes care of the older cub from the brood if it does not die during childbirth. Only when the first is born dead, takes care of the younger. The kid spends with his mother about the first three years of his life. Big pandas in some cases reach the age of 20 years.
Interesting Facts
About animals similar to teddy bears, many interesting things are known:
- The total number of big pandas is just over 2,000. For the first time the animal got to the zoo in the distant 1916, but it was not possible to save his life.
- Particular attention in China is paid to the protection of bamboo bears. On the territory of the state there are about fifty wildlife sanctuaries with an area of more than a million hectares for these rare animals.
- They severely punish the Chinese who will take the life of the panda: according to local legislation, the death penalty awaits him. Hunting animals is prohibited since 1962.
- A record of the big panda can be found in the Guinness Book of Records. There she is listed as the cutest animal on earth.
- In China, there are puppies of the Chow Chow breed, the owners of which painted their young pets. People turned the little dogs into little bamboo cubs, succumbing to a trendy trend. An original live copy of popular pandas is created in 2-3 hours using special paints. The procedure does not harm the dogs, and such a disguise as a “bear” lasts an average of 1.5 months.
- When caring for young bamboo cubs at the zoo, workers wear special “panda” costumes to make the kids feel comfortable and not stressful. Names are given to newborns only when 100 days have passed since the moment of birth.
- In the high-mountain Buddhist temples you can see tame bamboo bears who visit the monks in the hope of a tasty treat. Typically, these animals do not come into contact with humans and exercise extreme caution.
Big and small pandas are rare animals that resemble clumsy bears in habits and appearance. True, their mixed coat color looks much prettier than that of common predators. In modern society, they create all possible conditions to preserve the population of glorious animals.
