Giant Panda
\n Giant Panda
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\nHua Mei, the baby panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 2000.
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| Binomial name |
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\n| Ailuropoda melanoleuca |
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\nThe
Giant Panda (熊貓
pinyin xiong2 mao1),
Ailuropoda melanoleuca ("black-and-white cat-foot"), is a
mammal usually classified in the
bear family,
Ursidae native to central
China. The Giant Panda lives in
mountainous regions, like
Sichuan and
Tibet. Toward the later half of the 20th century, it has become somewhat of a national emblem for
China and is used in Chinese gold coins.
Its Chinese name means "
bear-
cat," and can also be read in reverse to mean the same thing. Its
Western epithet is named after the
Red Panda. It used to be known as
Mottled Bear (
Ailuropus melanoleucus).
Despite being taxonomically a
carnivore, its diet is overwhelmingly vegetarian. In fact, it lives almost entirely on
bamboo, although, like most animals, pandas have been known to eat eggs, and they consume some
insects along with their bamboo diet.
It is also distantly related to the
Red Panda, but the shared name appears to derive from their common bamboo diet. Until its relation with Red Panda was discovered in
1901, the Giant Panda was known as
parti-coloured bear.
The precise taxonomic classification of the panda is still under debate; it may be more closely related to raccoons than to bears.
Giant Pandas are endangered, threatened by continued loss of habitat and by a low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity. About 1,600 are believed to survive in the wild. The Giant Panda is the symbol of the
World Wildlife Fund, a conservation organization (
http://www.wwf.org).
The Giant Panda has an unusual paw, with a "thumb" and five fingers; the "thumb" is actually a modified wrist-bone. (
Stephen Jay Gould wrote an essay about this, then used the title
The Panda's Thumb for a book of collected essays.)
A mature Giant Panda
It was first made known to the West in 1869 by the French missionary
Armand David (1826-1900). The Giant Panda has long been a favourite of the public, at least partly on account of the fact that the species has an appealing baby-like appearance that makes it seem to resemble a living
teddy bear. The fact that it is usually depicted reclining peacefully eating
bamboo, as opposed to hunting, also adds to its image of innocence.
Loans of giant pandas to American and Japanese zoos formed an important part of the diplomacy of the
People's Republic of China in the 1970's as it marked some of the first cultural exchanges between the PRC and the West.
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