Giant pandas are one of the most well-known animals in the world and are widely loved around the world. It is a specialty of my country, mainly distributed in Sichuan and Qinling areas, and is a national treasure of my country.

Giant pandas look soft and cute. They move slowly and do not like to move. They spend most of their time eating and sleeping. So many people think that giant pandas are harmless animals. Treat it like a beast.

For example, at Qinling Wildlife Park in Xi'an, tourists once sneaked into the panda garden privately and had close contact with giant pandas. In fact, this behavior is very dangerous. Giant pandas are bears and are full of beasts.

So how powerful are giant pandas really? Can you beat the tiger?

A brief history of the evolution of the giant panda

The giant panda is known as the "living fossil" on the earth and is one of the oldest living animals. It has survived for millions of years. It’s been a long time.

The giant panda we are seeing now is the fourth stage of the evolution of this species. Its appearance has gradually become cuter, and its diet has also evolved to be dominated by bamboo, accounting for 99%.

The evolutionary history of giant pandas can be traced back to the late Miocene, about 8-9 million years ago. At that time, there was a small predator that looked like a fat fox called "Eo-Panda" The god can live on earth, and it is considered to be the earliest ancestor of modern giant pandas.

Compared with giant pandas, pandas are carnivores and hunt other small animals.

In the early Pleistocene, the evolution of giant pandas entered the second stage, when small species of giant pandas began to appear.

Compared with the primitive panda, the appearance of the small species of giant panda is more like that of modern giant pandas, but its weight is only about half. During the small species of giant pandas, they have evolved to feed mainly on bamboo.

Then in the mid-to-late Pleistocene, the giant panda appeared, which meant that the evolution of the giant panda entered the third stage. The giant panda is very large, about 13% larger than modern giant pandas, and looks more like a beast.

At this stage, the giant panda family entered its heyday, and its distribution range not only extended to most of my country, but also extended to today's Vietnam and Myanmar.

Although they have been vegetarians for a long time, they still have the ability to eat meat

In the fourth stage of giant panda evolution, which is the stage of modern giant pandas, they have almost completely given up meat.

They can feed on more than 50 kinds of plants in the wild, with bamboo accounting for more than half. Bamboo accounts for 99% of its year-round diet.

Due to long-term eating of bamboo, giant pandas’ bodies have also undergone some adaptive changes. For example, in order to better eat bamboo, their molars have become extremely developed and there is no alveolar space.

But do you know? Although they have transitioned to eating mainly bamboo since they were little pandas, giant pandas still retain the ability to eat meat. It has the fangs and claws of a predator and the digestive system of a carnivore.

The reason why giant pandas appear lazy and inactive on weekdays is mainly because their food is not nutritious and provides limited energy, so they need to spend a lot of time eating.

At the same time, in order to reduce unnecessary energy loss, giant pandas become inactive. But this does not mean that its mobility is weak and it cannot hunt.

In fact, wild giant pandas can eat meat and hunt, and their hunting ability is not weak. For example, in February 2017, a wild giant panda broke into a village in Leshan and preyed on sheep. It can be seen that although it has been a vegetarian for a long time, it still has the ability to eat meat.

The bite is so powerful that it can crush bones

The giant panda is most proud of its bite force. To a large extent, the reason why the beast gives people a terrifying feeling is They have sharp teeth, and the teeth need bite force to function.

To put it simply, the stronger the bite, the greater the damage it will cause to the opponent.

Zoologist Stephen Luo of the University of Sydney and others published a research paper in the magazine "Life Science" in 2005. From the numerical values ​​in it, we can know the bite force quotient of the giant panda ( The regression of the quotient of bite force divided by its body weight) is 142, while the tiger's bite force quotient is only 127, and the brown bear, also a bear, is only 78.

The giant panda is known as the "iron-eating beast". Its bite is so powerful that it can even crush bones. People have also discovered the phenomenon of giant pandas chewing bones many times in real life.

For example, in Shaanxi Foping National Nature Reserve, during the 2021 winter Daqing Mountain activity, rangers discovered a giant panda holding a takin bone and gnawing on a hillside.

Giant pandas are not small, weighing 100-115 kilograms as an adult, similar to a sloth bear. In the animal world, size often represents strength. The larger the size, the stronger the strength.

Giant pandas are larger than most animals and have almost no natural enemies in nature. Since the giant panda is so strong, can it defeat the tiger? In theory, the giant panda is definitely no match for the tiger in a duel. But the situation in life is not like a mechanical beast, but very complicated.

As a top predator, tigers are very cautious in daily life. On the contrary, plants-eating animals such as giant pandas are more brave. Because their food is very easy to obtain, even minor injuries will not affect their foraging; on the other hand, for predators such as tigers, even minor injuries may affect their hunting.

We refer to the Bengal tigers and sloth bears in India for this point. Although Bengal tigers have the ability to prey on sloth bears, in reality there are also many sloth bears that chase away Bengal tigers. For example, naturalist Arpit Parekh once photographed a sloth bear chasing away a Bengal tiger in the Tadoba Andari Tiger Reserve in India.

It can be seen that predators are often timid, but vegetarian animals and scavengers are confident. Therefore, in reality, although giant pandas are not as powerful as tigers, they may still be able to defeat or outrun tigers.