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Giant Panda

Ailuropoda melanoleuca

A giant panda eating

Photograph by Michael
Nichols

Giant Panda Profile

The giant panda has an insatiable appetite for
bamboo. A typical animal eats half the day—a full 12 out
of every 24 hours—and relieves itself dozens of times a
day. It takes 28 pounds (12.5 kilograms) of bamboo to
satisfy a giant panda's daily dietary needs, and it
hungrily plucks the stalks with elongated wrist bones
that function rather like thumbs. Pandas will sometimes
eat birds or rodents as well.

Wild pandas live
only in remote, mountainous regions in central China.
These high bamboo forests are cool and wet—just as
pandas like it. They may climb as high as 13,000 feet
(3,962 meters) to feed on higher slopes in the summer
season.

Pandas are often seen eating in a relaxed
sitting posture, with their hind legs stretched out
before them. They may appear sedentary, but they are
skilled tree-climbers and efficient
swimmers.

Giant pandas are solitary. They have a
highly developed sense of smell that males use to avoid
each other and to find females for mating in the spring.
After a five-month pregnancy, females give birth to a
cub or two, though they cannot care for both twins. The
blind infants weigh only 5 ounces (142 grams) at birth
and cannot crawl until they reach three months of age.
They are born white, and develop their much loved
coloring later.

There are only about 1,000 giant
pandas left in the wild. Perhaps 100 pandas live in
zoos, where they are always among the most popular
attractions. Much of what we know about pandas comes
from study of these zoo animals, because their wild
cousins are so rare and elusive.

Fast Facts

Type: Mammal

Diet: Omnivore

Average lifespan in the wild: 20
years

Size: 4 to 5 ft (1.2 to 1.5
m)

Weight: 300 lbs (136 kg)

Protection status: Endangered

Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m)
man:

Multimedia

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How You Can Help

World
Wildlife Fund: Giant Pandas

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Nations Save a Species: Giant Panda

Pandas
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National Zoological Park: Adopt a Species

Other Endangered Animals

Red
Panda

Black
Rhinoceros

Red
Uakari

Rocky
Mountain Bighorn Sheep

White
Rhinoceros

Snow
Leopard

Giant Panda range

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