The giant panda is a unique wild animal in my country and an international superstar. Zoos all over the world are rushing to rent China's giant pandas, even willing to pay millions of dollars just to rent them for 10 years. Foreign people also like to come to see giant pandas. Whenever there is a giant panda exhibition, tickets are often sold out. The reason why people all over the world like giant pandas is very simple, that is because they are cute. However, what many people don’t know is that the seemingly cute giant panda is actually a ferocious carnivore.

Cute giant panda

Why are giant pandas carnivores? Why did it switch to eating bamboo? In addition, how many secrets are hidden behind it?

Giant pandas are actually carnivores

Although they are called giant pandas, their actual name is "giant pandas", which means a bear that looks like a cat. Giant pandas are carnivores, or omnivores to be precise. Giant pandas have a wide range of food sources. In addition to the well-known bamboo, they also like to eat bamboo rats, insects, and even some wild giant pandas have preyed on goats.

The reason why giant pandas choose bamboo as their main food is that their habitats are decreasing and human activities have gradually encroached on their original habitat on the plains. In order to survive, they can only move to mountains and forests. Because they are omnivores, giant pandas can survive on plants such as bamboo. Another reason is that during the evolution of the giant panda population, a gene called "T1R1" lost activity. This caused the giant pandas to be unable to perceive the delicious taste of meat, so the giant pandas gradually reduced the frequency of eating meat.

Giant pandas eating bamboo

Contrary to what most people think, giant pandas don’t actually like to eat bamboo. It eats bamboo the most, firstly because bamboo is easier to obtain, and secondly, because no animal will compete with it for bamboo. Giant pandas are very similar to carnivores and have not evolved the ability to completely digest plant fiber.

Giant pandas can only put the bamboo that has been chewed hastily in their mouths through rough processing in their stomachs and then into their intestines. The giant panda's intestines lack bacteria that can decompose bamboo fiber to the greatest extent, which results in its poor ability to digest bamboo. In addition, the nutritional value of bamboo is very low, so giant pandas need to eat a lot of bamboo to fill their stomachs. A giant panda eats an average of 9-14 kilograms of bamboo leaves every day, but the energy it obtains from them is minimal.

Giant pandas eating bamboo

Giant pandas are very picky even if they want to eat bamboo. There are 250 kinds of bamboo in China, but giant pandas only like to eat more than 60 kinds of bamboo. Giant pandas like to eat bamboos such as cold arrow bamboo, Bashan wood bamboo, and Moso bamboo. Giant pandas like to eat bamboo shoots the most because they are the tenderest and have the highest nutritional value. Next is the young leaves and stems with higher starch content, because they have high nutritional value and are easier to digest.

Noting that giant pandas are not suitable for eating bamboo, the staff of my country’s giant panda reserve specially prepared steamed buns as feed for them. Of course, the ingredients of the steamed buns eaten by pandas are different from those eaten by us. In addition to corn flour, there are also ingredients such as tender bamboo powder, flour, rice noodles, salt, and eggs. Every steamed bun given to giant pandas has been strictly evaluated for nutritional value to ensure that they can eat well. At the same time, the steamed buns eaten by giant pandas are not fermented, but are only shaped by hand rubbing and the stickiness of corn flour.

No one dares to mess with giant pandas

Although giant pandas look harmless, they are actually very powerful. The giant panda can be said to be a living fossil in nature, because the current giant panda has not changed much from the original panda 8 million years ago. In ancient my country, giant pandas were called Mengshi, white bear, flower bear, etc., and the name "iron-eating beast" can be said to be very vivid.

The giant panda is called the "iron-eating beast" because it likes to run down the mountain and eat iron tools in villagers' homes. Dongfang Shuo of the Han Dynasty once described the giant panda in "Shu Yi Zhi": "There is a beast in the south, and its name is Iron-gnawing." Yuan Mu of the Ming Dynasty described the iron-eating beast in more detail in "The First Collection of New Qixie" Description of the place:

"There is a tapir beast in Fang County. It likes to eat copper and iron without harming anyone. It makes people salivate when they see plows, hoes, knives and axes, and eats them like rotten food. The seal on the city gate Eat all the iron sheets."

Dongfang Shuo

The translation of this sentence into modern Chinese means that there is a mythical beast in Fang County that likes to eat metals such as copper and iron but cannot eat them. people. As long as they are agricultural tools such as rakes in residents' homes and weapons such as swords and axes in government offices, they will be eaten by it. Pandas will salivate when they see these iron tools, and they will eat them as quickly as scavengers eat carrion. The giant panda was so greedy that it even ate all the iron sheets covering the city gate.

Giant pandas like to eat iron, which is closely related to the fact that bamboo cannot meet their nutritional needs. It also shows the powerful bite force of giant pandas from the side.

In the era of Emperor Yan and Emperor Huang, our country once domesticated pandas and used them as war animals, and achieved great results. According to Chinese folklore, there was a tribal leader named Chi You in China at that time, and his mount was a panda. The mounts of tribal leaders are usually extremely ferocious beasts, which shows how terrifying the panda is.

Pandas as war beasts

Pandas are not only ferocious warriors on the battlefield, they are also dominators after returning to nature. Adult pandas have almost no natural enemies. Carnivores such as wolves and leopards only dare to bully panda cubs, but dare not directly cause trouble to pandas. This is because the panda's attack power is very high and its defense power is not weak.

Adult giant pandas are generally between 120-180 centimeters in length and weigh 80-120 kilograms, with the heaviest weighing 180 kilograms. The huge body of the giant panda naturally acts as a deterrent to some small carnivores. Although the giant panda's carnivorous nature has partially degenerated, it has not been completely lost.

Pandas also have a ferocious side

The giant panda’s paws are very powerful and can kill an adult with ease just like its bear relatives. There are six claws on the bear's paw, and it is uncomfortable to be scratched by it. As mentioned before, giant pandas can crush bamboo and iron tools, which shows that giant pandas have very powerful bite force. So how strong is its bite? The bite force of giant pandas is slightly weaker than that of bears such as polar bears and grizzly bears, while the bite force of polar bears is about 245 kilograms. Looking at it this way, the bite force of giant pandas is actually not bad. In addition, the panda also has a thick layer of fat and hair, which makes it fearless when faced with the bites of other predators.

Although pandas are stupid and cute, even humans can't stand them when they get aggressive, let alone ferocious carnivores like tigers and wild wolves.

Why is the giant panda a nationally protected animal?

Since giant pandas have evolved the ability to eat plants and no animals dare to provoke giant pandas, why have giant pandas become nationally protected animals?

This is closely related to the breeding method of giant pandas. Giant pandas are viviparous mammals with a low fertility rate, usually giving birth to one or two cubs per litter. In rare cases, three cubs can be born, but the survival rate of triplets is extremely low. Sichuan Wolong Giant Panda Nature Reserve and Sichuan Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base have tried to artificially breed panda triplets, but only one survived.

Successfully born panda triplets

Even if the cubs are successfully born, they are still very dangerous. Panda cubs are born weighing only 100-200 grams and are pink in color. The panda cub is in particular danger at this time because it is particularly fragile and can easily die. Because the mother panda has experienced severe pain during childbirth, she has no time to take care of the baby pandas. Many wild panda cubs are killed by wild animals as a result.

Human hunting has largely led to the sharp decline in the number of pandas. Before liberation, giant pandas were brutally hunted and smuggled out of the country. Many giant pandas smuggled out of the country by foreigners died in other places because of the unsuitable climate and soil. After the founding of New China, although the country vigorously developed undertakings related to the protection of giant pandas and began to build the Wolong Giant Panda Nature Reserve in 1958, it has never been able to achieve the goal. During this period, vicious cases of giant panda hunting and smuggling of giant panda furs and specimens occurred from time to time.

Confiscated giant panda fur

What marked the success of giant panda protection on the right track were two important decisions. One was to ban immigrants from moving into giant panda nature in 1992. The residents in the protected area were moved out of the protected area at the same time; the second was the nationwide ban on guns and hunting in 1998. These two important measures protect wild giant pandas and allow their population to grow slowly.

With the efforts of many parties, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) downgraded the giant panda from endangered to vulnerable in 2016. Although the issue of the endangered giant panda has been resolved, the country has not relaxed relevant protection measures.