The Giant Pandais 165-353 pounds and between four to five feet long, including a five inch tail. They have poor vision, but their sense of smell is great. Their coat is woolly black and white and is slightly oily to prevent water from getting to their skin. Giant Pandas have a large wrist bones that they use like thumbs to help hold bamboo.
The average Giant Panda eats as much as 20 to 30 pounds of bamboo shoots a day. Bamboo goes in cycles so that it blooms about every 100 years, when this happens pandas can die, because they have nowhere else to go, because they are blocked of by human settlements and cannot eat the flowering bamboo. Bamboo is 99% of the Panda's diet but they eat other plants such as irises and crocuses. Even though they eat bamboo they have the digestive system of a carnivore. They eat 12 to 16 hours each day.
A giant pandas territory ranges from 1.5 square miles 2.5 square miles. Males have bigger ranges then the females.
The Panda's scientific name is Ailuropoda Melanoleuca. Giant Pandas are classified as bears by most scientists and until just a little while ago pandas were grouped with raccoons and lesser pandas . Scientists once classified the Giant Panda and the Red Panda as members of the same family but now now they are classified in different families. Giant Pandas
The giant pandas are not only a Chinese national treasure but are also beloved by people the world over. They are found only in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. In total there are fewer than 1000, of which 80% are distributed within the territory of Sichuan province. Therefore, when visitors from home and abroad come to Chengdu, Sichuan Province one of their main objectives will be to see the giant pandas for themselves.
The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. But Sichuan is thought to be the hometown of Giant Panda, just go with us to watch pandas!
