Panda
The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, "black-and-white cat-foot") is a mammal classified in the bear family (Ursidae), native to central-western and southwestern China.
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Social Behavior
Giant pandas are mostly shy, solitary animals. They live most of their lives alone. A small group of pandas may share a large feeding territory, usually only meeting to breed. Scientists don't know very much about the lives of these animals.
VOCALIZING
Giant panda bears are mostly silent, but they can bleat! They don't roar like other bears, but they do have 11 different calls, four of which are only used during mating.
Reproduction
Pandas have a very slow reproductive rate which contributes to their declining numbers.
Male and female giant pandas mate in the spring, attracting each other with calls and odors.
Females give birth between 95 and 160 days after mating. They have their cubs in dens that they dig in the ground. One or two cubs are born but usually only one survives.
BABY PANDAS
Panda cubs are small, white, blind, furless, and helpless at birth. Except for marsupials (kangaroos, opossums, etc.), giant panda cubs are the smallest newborn mammals. They weigh four to six ounces (85-140 g) as newborns. This is lighter than an apple.
Like newborn human babies, panda cubs cry when they are hungry or need care from their mother. Their coats take on adult coloring about a month after birth. Cubs' eyes open at six to seven weeks. They will follow their mother at about three months after birth. They start eating bamboo at about 6 months old and are weaned from their mother at about 9 months.
Panda cubs grow very slowly. They stay with their mother for one to two years. They are fully grown in 2-4 years.
Hibornation
Giant pandas do not hibernate since their food is available all year long. Also, the bamboo they eat is not high enough in nourishment to fatten them up for the winter. During the cold winter months, giant pandas go to lower altitudes where it is a bit warmer; they also take shelter in hollow trees or dens. They don't seem to have permanent dens.
Feeding
Pandas have the most specialized diet of any of the bears. Their diet is almost exclusively two species of bamboo (arrow and umbrella bamboo).
Pandas eat about 40 pounds of food each day. Bamboo is very low in nutrition. Even though the panda eats this plant, it cannot digest it very well and most of the bamboo passes undigested through the digestive tract. It has to eat for up to 12 hours every day in order to get enough nourishment. Its throat and stomach have extra-tough linings to protect them from the tough food.
