It's interesting to note, despite the Chinese name, both panda species are dog-like carnivores Caniformia rather than cat-like carnivores. Red pandas and giant pandas share the suborder Caniformia with dogs, wolves, bears, weasels, skunks, and aquatic pinnipeds seals etc. They're both canines rather than felines.
However, both pandas have 'cat' in their Latin species names. Giant pandas are Ailuropoda melanoleuca or 'black-and-white cat-feet'; red pandas are Ailurus fulgens or 'shining cats'. Giant pandas can exist almost entirely on bamboo. Sometimes even 99 percent of their diet is bamboo! Usually though, they also eat some insects and other food. This works out to 12 to 38 kilograms 26 pounds to 83 pounds of bamboo stems and leaves each day. In the wild, they may also eat fruit, mushrooms, grasses, and insects, and when they can, they eat meat.
In captivity , they like eating apples, carrots, other fruits and vegetables, and specially prepared panda cakes. On the other hand, red pandas are more like weasels and naturally eat a more varied diet. Giant pandas and red pandas live in similar habitats in mountains.
The red pandas have a greater tolerance for colder temperatures, so they range higher than do giant pandas. Red pandas are high altitude animals. In prehistoric times, both of their territories were much larger, and there were more places where they coexisted. Now the only places where they are found together in the wild are in the Sichuan mountains. Giant pandas once ranged even into Myanmar, Guangxi, Guangdong and northwards to Beijing.
But now they are found only in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi Provinces. As the graphics above show, they are now mainly in the Min mountains near Chengdu.
Near Xi'an in the Qinling Mountains, about pandas are thought to still survive. These Qinling pandas have long been isolated from the other pandas in the south. Most of them are black and white pandas, but some are the brown and tan breed or mixtures of the two breeds. Red pandas are more widespread than giant pandas in eastern Asia. It is thought that there are between 10, to 20, red pandas left in the wild. There are perhaps 3, to 7, in China, 5, to 6, in India, and few hundred in Nepal. Red pandas are more widespread southwards, and their range extends through Yunnan and Guangxi into Myanmar.
However, there are none in the Qinling Mountains near Xi'an. Red pandas are mountain dwellers and don't like hot weather. They prefer mountainous mixed deciduous and conifer forests that have thick patches of bamboo undergrowth that they can eat. In the Himalayas, the red pandas are found in altitudes of between 1, and 4, meters. These high mountain slopes tend to be covered in deciduous hardwood forest.
In China, their favorite forests are old-growth forests with old big trees, and much of these kinds of forests have been logged. They are left only in some mountain areas in Yunnan, Sichuan, and Tibet now. Though the two animals are classified very differently, their behaviors are similar in some ways. So this constant eating takes up much of their lives. They both use opposable wrist digits to grab and hold the bamboo leaves and stems and strip the bamboo stalks.
It is quite an unusual behavior among animals. They also both move unusually slowly since bamboo is a low-energy food. Here is a surprising panda speed fact: Giant pandas can sprint at 32 kilometers an hour 20 miles an hour.
The fastest human runners can put on a burst of speed of about 37 kph 23 mph in comparison. So the fastest pandas can run almost as fast as the fastest people, and they run faster than most people! Here is another surprising red panda speed fact: Red pandas run faster than giant pandas and people! Though they are such little animals, but at top speed some can run at 38 kph or 23 mph.
Both animals also breed and reproduce comparatively little. A giant panda litter is only one or two cubs, and their gestation period is 3 to 5 months. Usually only one cub per litter will survive in the wild. They are born in late summer. It is thought that the average panda female in the wild can only have about 5 cubs in total.
Red pandas reproduce faster. The cubs take 2 years to mature. Giant pandas first came into the Western "consciousness" during the Nixon Detente years of the s when pandas became a Chinese national symbol overseas and scientists started to declare that the pretty, large teddy bear animals were on the brink of extinction.
China tried to protect its lovely giant pandas. Most panda conservation work has involved protecting their habitat, making laws to punish hunters and smugglers, and captive breeding. Qizai belongs to a subspecies established as Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis in The subspecies are more commonly referred to as Qinling pandas in reference to the isolated Qinling Mountains where they have been spotted since the mids.
Qinling pandas differ from the Giant Panda not only in color although most have the traditional black and white coloring , but also in their slightly smaller skulls and proportionately larger molar teeth.
In a recent Nature. As the animals move about, they mark their routes by spraying urine, clawing tree trunks, and rubbing against objects. But wild panda populations involved in long-term studies are known to have reproductive rates comparable to those of some populations of American black bears, which are thriving.
Gestation takes about 95 to days and pandas normally give birth to single young twins seem to be born more frequently in captivity, when artificial insemination is used. A Panda's daily menu consists almost entirely of the leaves, stems, and shoots of various bamboo species. Bamboo contains very little nutritional value, so pandas must eat kg every day to meet their energy needs.
Occasionally the panda will hunt for pikas and other small rodents. As members of the bear family, giant pandas possess the same digestive system of a carnivore.
But they differ in the sense that they have adapted to a vegetarian diet. This behaviour defines their lives in many ways, since they will often rely on living close to areas where bamboo is abundant.
This leaves them vulnerable to any loss of bamboo habitat — a key threat to their survival. Problems About the panda Solutions.
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