GIANT PANDAS
Habitat and Geographic Distribution: Giant pandas live mountain ranges in central China, in Shaanix,and Gansu provinces.They once lived in lowland areas, but farming, forest and other development now restrict giant pandas to the mountains. Pandas live in China in mountain forests where they have lots of bamboo to eat and trees in which to build their dens. As bamboo in an area is eaten, giant pandas traval to other areas. When people began settling in places where the giant pandas lives, pandas had fewer areas to look for bamboo.To help the giant pandas, the Chinese government has created protected areas to save the forests. Giant pandas are endangered because their natural homes are shrinking. Giant pandas live in broadleaf and coniferous forests with a dense understory of bamboo,at elevtions between 5,000 and 10,000 feet. Torrential rains or dense mist throughout the year characterizes these forests,often shrouded in heavy clouds.
Physical Description: The giant panda, has a body typical of bears. It has black fur on ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coast is white. The panda's thick, wooly coats keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. Giant pandas have large molar teeth and stong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. Giant pandas are cute but can be as dangerous as a bear.
Size: Giant pandas are between two and three feet tall at the shoulder (on all four legs) and reach four to six feet long. Males are larger then females, weighing up to 250 pounds in the wild. Females reach 220 pounds.
Status: There are about 1600 left in the wild. More than 300 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world, mostly in China.
Life Span: Scientists aren't sure how long giant pandas live in the wild but they are sure it's shorter then lifespans in zoos. Chinese scientists have reported zoo pandas as old as 35.
Diet: A wild giant panda's diet is 99 percent bamboo. The balance consists of other grasses and small rodents or musk deer fawns. In zoos, giant pandas eat bamboo, sugar cane, rice gruel, a speical high-fiber biscuit, carrots, apples, and sweet potatoes.
Social Structure: Adult giant pandas are generally solitary, but they do communicate through scent marks, calls and occasional meetings. Offspring stay with their mothers from one and a half to three years. The giant panda has lived in bamboo forests for several million years. The giant pandas has lived in bamboo forests for several million years.
Feeding Adaptions: A usully eats while sitting upright,in a pose that resembles how humans sit on the floor.The pandas also uses its powerful jaws and strong teeth to crush the tough,fibrous bamboo into bits. A pandas needs to consume a large amount of food from 20 to 40 pounds of bamboo each day to get all its nutrients. To obtain this much food means that a panda must spend 10 to 16 hours a day eating, the rest of the time is spent sleeping and resting.
Water: Wild giant pandas get much of the water they need from bamboo, a grass whose contents are about half water. Almost every giant panda also drinks fresh water from rivers and streams that are fed by melting snowfall in high mountain peaks. Ther forests in China where the giant pandas live receive about 30 to 40 inches of rain and snow a year.
Development: At birth the cub is helpless and it takes lot of effort on the mother's part to raise it. A newborn cub weighs 3 to 5 ounces and is about the size of a stik of butter. Pink, hairless and blind the cub is 1/900th the size of its mother. Cubs do not open their eyes until they are six to eight weeks of age and are not mobile until three months. A cub may nurse for eight to nine months. A cub is weaned at one yeasr but not socially weaned for up to two years.
Lifestyle: A wild panda spends much of its day resting, feding and seeking food. Giant pandas do not hibernate. Until recently, scientists thought giant pandas spent most of their lives alone, with males and females meeting only during the day breeding season. Recent studies show a differnt picture, in which small groups of pandas share a large territory and sometimes meet outside the breeding season. There is lots tob e learned about the lives of these animals and every new discovery helps scientist in their battle to save this species.
Physical Description: The giant panda, has a body typical of bears. It has black fur on ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coast is white. The panda's thick, wooly coats keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. Giant pandas have large molar teeth and stong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. Giant pandas are cute but can be as dangerous as a bear.
Size: Giant pandas are between two and three feet tall at the shoulder (on all four legs) and reach four to six feet long. Males are larger then females, weighing up to 250 pounds in the wild. Females reach 220 pounds.
Status: There are about 1600 left in the wild. More than 300 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world, mostly in China.
Life Span: Scientists aren't sure how long giant pandas live in the wild but they are sure it's shorter then lifespans in zoos. Chinese scientists have reported zoo pandas as old as 35.
Diet: A wild giant panda's diet is 99 percent bamboo. The balance consists of other grasses and small rodents or musk deer fawns. In zoos, giant pandas eat bamboo, sugar cane, rice gruel, a speical high-fiber biscuit, carrots, apples, and sweet potatoes.
Social Structure: Adult giant pandas are generally solitary, but they do communicate through scent marks, calls and occasional meetings. Offspring stay with their mothers from one and a half to three years. The giant panda has lived in bamboo forests for several million years. The giant pandas has lived in bamboo forests for several million years.
Feeding Adaptions: A usully eats while sitting upright,in a pose that resembles how humans sit on the floor.The pandas also uses its powerful jaws and strong teeth to crush the tough,fibrous bamboo into bits. A pandas needs to consume a large amount of food from 20 to 40 pounds of bamboo each day to get all its nutrients. To obtain this much food means that a panda must spend 10 to 16 hours a day eating, the rest of the time is spent sleeping and resting.
Water: Wild giant pandas get much of the water they need from bamboo, a grass whose contents are about half water. Almost every giant panda also drinks fresh water from rivers and streams that are fed by melting snowfall in high mountain peaks. Ther forests in China where the giant pandas live receive about 30 to 40 inches of rain and snow a year.
Development: At birth the cub is helpless and it takes lot of effort on the mother's part to raise it. A newborn cub weighs 3 to 5 ounces and is about the size of a stik of butter. Pink, hairless and blind the cub is 1/900th the size of its mother. Cubs do not open their eyes until they are six to eight weeks of age and are not mobile until three months. A cub may nurse for eight to nine months. A cub is weaned at one yeasr but not socially weaned for up to two years.
Lifestyle: A wild panda spends much of its day resting, feding and seeking food. Giant pandas do not hibernate. Until recently, scientists thought giant pandas spent most of their lives alone, with males and females meeting only during the day breeding season. Recent studies show a differnt picture, in which small groups of pandas share a large territory and sometimes meet outside the breeding season. There is lots tob e learned about the lives of these animals and every new discovery helps scientist in their battle to save this species.