Let us talk today about a very cute animal. We generally call them The Panda. They are also known as The Giant Panda. This article will focus on some of the interesting features of these cute adorable animal.
They are belong to the order carnivora under class mammalia. They are the rarest of the bear family. But unlike other members of this order, 99% of their diet is bamboo.and they spend most of their days time eating bamboo.
They are around 3 ft tall and weighs around 90 to 140 kgs. A new born cub weighs less than 5 ozs. A panda cub is one-nine-hundredth the size of its mother. This is the second most smallest ratio after the kangaroos(the newborn were the size of a jelly bean).
The cute round face of the giant panda is a result of their strong chick muscle. It starts from the head till the jaws. It is so strong that a panda can easily bite through a thick bamboo stalk that humans find tough to cut with an axe.
The major portion of the food eaten by the panda is not digested. They can absorb only 25-30% of the nutrient of a bamboo. the giant panda can defecate up to 40 times a day.
Pandas have plantigrade feet i.e, entire palm(toe and heel) touches the ground like us while walking unlike horse and cattles(where only the toes touch the ground).
The giant panda have 42 teeth.
If you are thinking about keeping one of them as your pet, consider this: Keeping a single panda in a zoo is very very expensive. It cost more than 5 times of the rearing cost of an Elephant(the next most expensive).
They eat on an average 30 lbs of bamboo in a day. In the spring time it can reach up to 100 lbs.
They have developed a unique thumb(which is a modified wrist bone) which is helpful in holding the bamboo stalks.
The female panda ovulate only once in a year and they are fertile only for 3 days of a year.
Unlike other bears living in temperate climate, the pandas do not hibernate.
The pandas are the symbol of peace in China. In China giant pandas are consider to be national treasure.
In 1987 the law passed by the china government ensures life sentenced or even death for the crime of killing a panda. In present the law is revised and made 10 to 20 years imprisonment.
The Giant pandas are the symbol of WWF(World Wildlife Fund) for nature.
As per the IUCN red list the panda are endangered species. Just over 1000 pandas are left in the world. The threats are basically from loss of habitat and poaching.
Hope you liked the article and able to know some of the facts which were unknown to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment