Essay On Panda

Overview The Ailuropoda melanoleuca ( black and white cat-footed bear) or also known as “giant panda” belongs to the family Ursidae with the other bears despite of morphological similarities with the raccoons. These mammalian species are endemic to southern China. They live most likely in cold places and mountains. These creatures have flat face with black eye patches and a barrel-like body covered with velvet black and white furs which make them immensely charismatic. They have a modified wrist bone which is widely known as “panda thumb” that is used for their feeding. These animals are enlisted with the other endangered species due to the intrusion of people in their habitats causing insufficient source of bamboos.

Description

The bamboo is 99% panda’s chief source of food (Nowak & Paradiso, 1983). It consume almost 15 kilograms of bamboo (roots, shoots, leaves) a day. Wild pandas feed in almost 25 known species of bamboo. Yet the panda has a gastrointestinal tract that is found in carnivores and lacks of modification observed from most of herbivores that promote increase digest retention to facilitate microbial fermentation of ingested plant materials (Schaller et al., 1985)

Despite of widely known bamboo-eaters, these mammals eat other herbivorous food like gentians, irises, crocuses, Chinese vines and tuft grasses ( Pen Hung-Shou,1943). Reports that that these animals raid bee hives for honey (Perry, 1969). Giant panda are hypo-carnivore( partial to meat),where the teeth are reliable for crushing bones (Lumpkin and Seidensticker, 2002). Rarely, it consume soil when intake plant toxins.

Giant panda generally eats in a sitting position with the forelegs free to operate bamboo with the use of its panda thumb. They spend most of their time feeding for almost 14 hours and only stops during sleeping. Due to its low quality diet, the panda would not hibernate and would forage for