What do you not know about popular science pandas?

Popular science facts about giant pandas that you don’t know

1. In 1869, giant pandas were called flower bears and bamboo bears. After discovering them, a French missionary called them black and white bears. However, Died in transit, the giant panda specimen caused a sensation when it was seen by Europeans. In 1936, the name of the giant panda was Cat Bear. The Beibei Museum in Chongqing, Sichuan once exhibited panda specimens, and the word "Cat Bear" was written across the sign from left to right. However, at that time, newspapers and periodicals used to read horizontal headlines from right to left, so reporters mistakenly wrote "cat panda" as "panda" in their reports. Later, everyone couldn't change the name because it was so smooth, so the name giant panda came into being.

2. In 1936, an American woman named Ruth Harkless brought the first living giant panda to the United States, named Su Lin. She took the panda when she boarded the ship. Giant pandas pass customs inspection only after they are registered as pugs. After landing in the United States, it caused a huge sensation and shone brighter than any other star.

3. People always like to joke that the biggest dream of a giant panda is to have a color photo, but a giant panda really came to slap him in the face. This is the only remaining brown giant panda in the world: Qizai. Qizai was discovered in Foping National Nature Reserve in Shaanxi Province in 2009. Scientists speculate that Qizai has a brown and white coat due to some genetic mutations and the peculiarity of the geographical environment, or it may be atavism. However, in my country, brown giant pandas have been discovered five times in the past 30 years, and they were all found in the same area. Qizai is the fifth giant panda discovered since 1985, and is the only living brown panda discovered so far.

4. All giant pandas in the world come from China, and the habitat of giant pandas is only found in China.

5. Unlike other members of the bear family whose claws have little dexterity, giant pandas’ fingers can also flexibly grasp and close together, helping them to hold bamboo and remove unwanted stems and leaves before eating.

6. Giant pandas have lived on the earth for at least 8 million years since their ancestors began the panda era. .The panda has an amazing bite force. It was once called an iron-eating beast in ancient times and can chew iron pots.

7. Female giant pandas only ovulate once a year and the mortality rate of wild cubs is 40%. Baby giant pandas weigh only about 140g at birth, and a female giant panda is 900 times larger than her cubs during delivery. They are born almost white and gradually develop black and white fur.

8. Male panda cubs do not reach adulthood until they are about seven years old. Female giant pandas can give birth to one or two cubs every two years. Cubs live with their mothers for 18 months, then go on adventures on their own!

9. An adult giant panda raised in captivity can weigh up to 200 kilograms, while a wild one can weigh only 50-80 kilograms. The panda's hair is thick and soft, up to 10 centimeters long.

10. Unlike most bears, giant pandas do not need to hibernate because their bamboo-based diet prevents them from storing enough fat during the winter. When winter comes, they come down from the top of the mountain to warm places to look for bamboo and continue eating!

11. Giant pandas start eating bamboo when they are one year old, and adult pandas eat about 20 different types of bamboo. 99% of pandas' food consists of bamboo, but bamboo is not very nutritious and requires at least 20 kilograms of food per day, which may take 16 hours to eat. They poop 40 times a day and can produce more than 50 pounds of poop a day. Panda poop is organic fertilizer. The gastrointestinal absorption function of pandas is not good, and 70% of the nutrients are retained in the feces excreted. In addition, many other nutritious foods are added to the food of captive pandas, so the content of protein, crude fiber, etc. in the feces is very high, which can be called organic. Fertilizer conveyor.

There is a kind of tea in Sichuan called "Panda Tea" that is made from panda excrement. Panda tea can be sold for 440,000 yuan per kilogram. Some people say that the poop of giant pandas has a faint fragrance of bamboo, like rice dumplings. It is worth tasting. Newborn pandas will eat their own mother's feces. This is because the intestines of panda cubs are sterile and they must ingest the feces of their own kind to obtain the intestinal flora that are very important for survival.

12. Giant pandas have a very keen sense of smell. Even at night, they can find the best bamboo stems by smell.

13. Giant pandas are omnivores, which means their food includes plants and meat. However, eating bamboo is the main dietary habit, but giant pandas also eat bamboo rats and other small animals, and occasionally eat animal carrion.

14. Giant pandas are shy animals and like to live alone. Giant pandas use their keen sense of smell to detect the scent of other giant pandas and avoid them. The only exception is during the breeding season (from March to May each year), when males use their sense of smell to locate female giant pandas.

15. my country practices a form of gift exchange that dates back to the seventh century, leasing pandas to other countries (previously as gifts) for diplomatic purposes. This approach is called "panda diplomacy."

16. There are currently about 2,000 wild pandas.

17. The panda was first known to the West in 1869. In the spring of this year, French missionary David received a panda fur in Dengchigou, Baoxing, Sichuan. He said, "This will be an interesting new species in science." This discovery will fill a gap in the world's animals. Later, he sent the captured panda to France. Unfortunately, the panda died on the way because it could not withstand the bumps and climate changes. David made it into a specimen and sent it to the National Museum in Paris, France, for display. This is how the world's first giant panda type specimen was produced.

18. Pandas have lived on the earth for two to three million years. According to scientists, the ancestors of pandas appeared in the early Pluvial Period 2 to 3 million years ago. The giant panda was smaller than today's pandas. Since then, giant pandas have adapted to life in subtropical bamboo forests. They have gradually increased in size and relied on bamboo for survival. The middle and late Pleistocene, 500,000 to 700,000 years ago, was the heyday of giant pandas.

19. The lifespan of a wild panda is about 20 years. One year of a giant panda is equivalent to three years of human life. The average life span of wild giant pandas is generally 15 years, and that of captive giant pandas is 17 years. It is said that the longest-lived person in the panda family lived to be 37 years old, which is almost more than 100 years old in humans.

20. Pandas look docile, but are actually ferocious. Bamboo is the staple food of pandas. In addition to bamboo, pandas also eat wild fruits, insects, bamboo rats, takin and other animal carcasses. Animals that live in the bamboo forest with the giant panda include golden monkeys, takin and red pandas. They generally do not compete for food and can coexist peacefully most of the time.

Although the giant panda seems to be in peace with the world, there are still some animals that are enemies of them in its habitat, such as golden cats, leopards, jackals, wolves, yellow-throated martens, etc. But they mainly attack giant panda cubs and sick and elderly people, because young and strong giant pandas are still highly skilled in martial arts." They have inherited the ferocious temperament of their ancestors and will fight back bravely once provoked.

21. In the illegal fur trade market, the value of panda fur is between 60,000 and 100,000 US dollars.

22. The estrus period of female pandas is only about 2 days per year. The best time for female giant pandas to be pregnant is generally. It only takes 1 to 2 days. If you can't seize the opportunity of pregnancy in these two days, you will have to wait another year for a female giant panda to conceive a baby panda. No wonder the number of pandas is so rare!

23. For. To survive comfortably, a panda usually needs about 4 square miles of space.

24. Pandas are good at sports and like to climb trees and swim. Giant pandas tend to be clumsy and slow. In fact, giant pandas are not stupid at all. They are all masters of tree climbing. When giant pandas were young, climbing trees and swimming were compulsory courses for them. They climbed trees at least once a day: as long as there was water, they would try their best. Swim more.

25. Pandas only ovulate once a year. Pierre Comizzoli, a veterinarian and reproductive physiologist at the National Zoo, said that it is very difficult for sperm to enter a female panda's body and she can only get pregnant once a year. , and the egg survival time is only 36 to 40 hours.

26. Male giant pandas have poor sexual performance. Breeders always encourage female giant pandas to conceive naturally during the ovulation period, but male giant pandas often do not. Cooperation. Although people often provide male giant pandas with the opportunity to reproduce naturally, at some point people have to make the decision to perform artificial insemination because the opportunity cannot be missed.

27. Pandas can also suffer from pseudopregnancy. After artificial insemination, predicting whether a female panda is pregnant or not depends on astrology. The progesterone level of the panda will be the same whether it is pregnant or not, which will lead to the occurrence of false pregnancies even if the panda is not pregnant. (Building nests, sleeping longer, eating less)

28. Giant pandas are lazier than imagined.

The metabolic level of a 90kg giant panda is less than half that of a human of the same weight. Giant pandas rest most of the day. Even under active conditions, I usually only walk about 20 meters per hour. Giant pandas eating bamboo are really a helpless move in the face of fierce competition for food in nature and few people eating bamboo. Because bamboo is low in nutrients and energy and difficult to digest, giant pandas have to eat a large amount of bamboo every day to meet their needs for life activities. At the same time, giant pandas also need to reduce energy consumption as much as possible. Eating more, moving less and staying there lazily every day has become their living habits.