Pandas are super-cute, gentle solitary animals. Only 2000 or so of them remain, once of the planet’s most endangered animals, but things are getting better for this magical animal. A fluffy panda footstool serves as a gentle reminder to respect and care about these gorgeous creatures. Here’s everything you want to know about giant pandas.
When did the West first discover the giant panda?
Giant pandas live in the mountainous bamboo forests of central China, loved worldwide for their appealing face and chunky, cute look. The first pandas were discovered in the wild in the 1200s, left in peace until the 1800s when they became the darlings of the Western world thanks to the French missionary Armand David, who shipped an unfortunate panda to Europe in 1869 as a gift for Napoleon III.
Why pandas are not actually bears
A panda’s rear paws point inwards, which is why they waddle, and their unusual wrist bone acts a lot like a thumb. They like to stand on their back legs, easily reaching tasty bamboo snacks high up, and they’re unusually playful too, enjoying somersaulting, rolling around and bathing in the dust. They can swim, really well, like bears. In fact pandas were thought to be bears until someone discovered they’re actually genetically closer to raccoons.
The panda’s family tree is unique. Its ancient bear sub-family split from other bears between twenty and thirty million years ago, and now they’re the only surviving member of the sub-family. Their closest genetic relative died out about two million years ago, at a time when modern humans weren’t even a twinkle in the universe’s eye.
Why the black and white fur?
It’s a camouflage thing. The white bits of a panda help it hide in the sun and the black bits help it hide in the shade.
They might be naturally vegan… but pandas still love meat
A panda’s digestive system is a lot like a carnivore’s, which hints at a fascinating evolution. They might be plant eaters but they can’t digest plant cellulose. Fossil pandas reveal they switched from meat to bamboo at least three million years ago. To this day they still enjoy meat, used as bait to catch them and put collars on so we can keep an eye on and keep them safe in their natural environment.
Needing at least two types of bamboo to stay alive, they also enjoy eggs, small animals, roadkill, pumpkins, kidney beans, porridge, wheat and pig food.
Big, greedy, and constantly pooping!
At their biggest the males grow to 1.8m long and weigh more than 100 kg. The females are a bit smaller. Feasting on bamboo leaves, shoots and stems, it’s amazing they grow so large and no surprise they eat such vast amounts of food. They’re eating 16 hours a day and poop at least fifty times daily, constantly on the go.
Alone but not lonely
As natural hermits, pandas are solitary animals. They don’t travel far, with a home range of just one and a half to just over two square miles of forest, each animal’s territory overlapping generously with the neighbours’. Their excellent sense of smell tells them exactly where their fellow pandas are, and they use their powerful anal scent glands to leave messages for friends on trees, rocks and clumps of grass. The fragrance reveals the identity, gender and even the social status of the panda who left the message. Male scent messages talk more about territory while the female scent focuses on telling passing males when they’re ready to mate. If a male is interested he’ll basically shout for her! Males can get scarily aggressive in competition for a fertile female.
Pandas have unusual eyes
Like cats, pandas eyes have vertical slits for pupils.
Uncannily human-like babies
Pandas mate in spring and give birth in the autumn, with an average 135 day gestation. The blind babies are tiny, weighing just 110g or so, the smallest of any mammal with a placenta. Nobody knows why. For the first two or three weeks the mum cuddles the baby against herself, a lot like a human. Like bears, pandas often have twins, something else we don’t really understand. Sadly pandas struggle to care for more than one baby.
Newborn pandas are helpless. All they can do is eat and make noise. The mother provides the warmth and food, settling the infant at her breast because it can’t make its own way there. Mum even helps the baby poo and pee. They develop slowly, like human babies, not opening their eyes for six weeks and not walking until they’re around 80 days old. No wonder they need a safe, warm home, a cosy den made by its mother, where it stays for as long as four months.
At 14 months a baby panda has its milk teeth and can start to eat bamboo for the first time. By two years old they’re fully weaned. Females can’t get pregnant again until the baby leaves home but once they do, they live for around two decades in the wild and can reach thirty in captivity.
Almost as popular as teddy bears
Toy pandas are loved by children across the globe, and by adults too. A toy panda who flew on World War Two Dambusters raids has been described as priceless, taken by Flt Sgt William Gordon Radcliffe on sixty operational flights over Germany.
Why are pandas so endangered?
As fossils from Myanmar, Vietnam and China show, giant pandas thrived across east Asia during the early Pleistocene period, an unimaginable 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. Since then humans have destroyed the panda’s forests, poaching and hunting pandas, enslaving them in zoos and treating then like a plaything for the wealthy. They were ultimately squashed into a tiny area along the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, with just 5000 square miles of land to survive on.
Since the 1990s China has made great efforts to conserve and protect their precious pandas, now a national treasure. There are more than forty reserves for pandas to live safely and peacefully, the bamboo forests are being restored, and they’re a lot less at risk than they used to be. Once an endangered species according to the IUCN Red List, since 2016 they’ve been classified as ‘vulnerable’: still not good, but hopeful.
If you’re inspired you can adopt a panda via the WWF. In the meantime check out our panda footstools, the cutest way to celebrate these endearing animals.
Meet the real-life animal behind cute panda footstools
Pandas are super-cute, gentle solitary animals. Only 2000 or so of them remain, once of the planet’s most endangered animals, but things are getting better for this magical animal. A fluffy panda footstool serves as a gentle reminder to respect and care about these gorgeous creatures. Here’s everything you want to know about giant pandas.
When did the West first discover the giant panda?
Giant pandas live in the mountainous bamboo forests of central China, loved worldwide for their appealing face and chunky, cute look. The first pandas were discovered in the wild in the 1200s, left in peace until the 1800s when they became the darlings of the Western world thanks to the French missionary Armand David, who shipped an unfortunate panda to Europe in 1869 as a gift for Napoleon III.
Why pandas are not actually bears
A panda’s rear paws point inwards, which is why they waddle, and their unusual wrist bone acts a lot like a thumb. They like to stand on their back legs, easily reaching tasty bamboo snacks high up, and they’re unusually playful too, enjoying somersaulting, rolling around and bathing in the dust. They can swim, really well, like bears. In fact pandas were thought to be bears until someone discovered they’re actually genetically closer to raccoons.
The panda’s family tree is unique. Its ancient bear sub-family split from other bears between twenty and thirty million years ago, and now they’re the only surviving member of the sub-family. Their closest genetic relative died out about two million years ago, at a time when modern humans weren’t even a twinkle in the universe’s eye.
Why the black and white fur?
It’s a camouflage thing. The white bits of a panda help it hide in the sun and the black bits help it hide in the shade.
They might be naturally vegan… but pandas still love meat
A panda’s digestive system is a lot like a carnivore’s, which hints at a fascinating evolution. They might be plant eaters but they can’t digest plant cellulose. Fossil pandas reveal they switched from meat to bamboo at least three million years ago. To this day they still enjoy meat, used as bait to catch them and put collars on so we can keep an eye on and keep them safe in their natural environment.
Needing at least two types of bamboo to stay alive, they also enjoy eggs, small animals, roadkill, pumpkins, kidney beans, porridge, wheat and pig food.
Big, greedy, and constantly pooping!
At their biggest the males grow to 1.8m long and weigh more than 100 kg. The females are a bit smaller. Feasting on bamboo leaves, shoots and stems, it’s amazing they grow so large and no surprise they eat such vast amounts of food. They’re eating 16 hours a day and poop at least fifty times daily, constantly on the go.
Alone but not lonely
As natural hermits, pandas are solitary animals. They don’t travel far, with a home range of just one and a half to just over two square miles of forest, each animal’s territory overlapping generously with the neighbours’. Their excellent sense of smell tells them exactly where their fellow pandas are, and they use their powerful anal scent glands to leave messages for friends on trees, rocks and clumps of grass. The fragrance reveals the identity, gender and even the social status of the panda who left the message. Male scent messages talk more about territory while the female scent focuses on telling passing males when they’re ready to mate. If a male is interested he’ll basically shout for her! Males can get scarily aggressive in competition for a fertile female.
Pandas have unusual eyes
Like cats, pandas eyes have vertical slits for pupils.
Uncannily human-like babies
Pandas mate in spring and give birth in the autumn, with an average 135 day gestation. The blind babies are tiny, weighing just 110g or so, the smallest of any mammal with a placenta. Nobody knows why. For the first two or three weeks the mum cuddles the baby against herself, a lot like a human. Like bears, pandas often have twins, something else we don’t really understand. Sadly pandas struggle to care for more than one baby.
Newborn pandas are helpless. All they can do is eat and make noise. The mother provides the warmth and food, settling the infant at her breast because it can’t make its own way there. Mum even helps the baby poo and pee. They develop slowly, like human babies, not opening their eyes for six weeks and not walking until they’re around 80 days old. No wonder they need a safe, warm home, a cosy den made by its mother, where it stays for as long as four months.
At 14 months a baby panda has its milk teeth and can start to eat bamboo for the first time. By two years old they’re fully weaned. Females can’t get pregnant again until the baby leaves home but once they do, they live for around two decades in the wild and can reach thirty in captivity.
Almost as popular as teddy bears
Toy pandas are loved by children across the globe, and by adults too. A toy panda who flew on World War Two Dambusters raids has been described as priceless, taken by Flt Sgt William Gordon Radcliffe on sixty operational flights over Germany.
Why are pandas so endangered?
As fossils from Myanmar, Vietnam and China show, giant pandas thrived across east Asia during the early Pleistocene period, an unimaginable 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. Since then humans have destroyed the panda’s forests, poaching and hunting pandas, enslaving them in zoos and treating then like a plaything for the wealthy. They were ultimately squashed into a tiny area along the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, with just 5000 square miles of land to survive on.
Since the 1990s China has made great efforts to conserve and protect their precious pandas, now a national treasure. There are more than forty reserves for pandas to live safely and peacefully, the bamboo forests are being restored, and they’re a lot less at risk than they used to be. Once an endangered species according to the IUCN Red List, since 2016 they’ve been classified as ‘vulnerable’: still not good, but hopeful.
If you’re inspired you can adopt a panda via the WWF. In the meantime check out our panda footstools, the cutest way to celebrate these endearing animals.