What are the characteristics of the giant panda's habits and behaviors
As everyone knows, the giant panda is our country's “national treasure”, with a body color of black and white. Its cute appearance makes it much loved by people. So, what are the habits and morphological characteristics of the giant panda?
1. Habits of the giant panda
The giant panda's food is mainly bamboo, and it occasionally eats some meat. They are solitary by nature, often scattered and living alone in dense bamboo groves, and are good at climbing trees. Male and female giant pandas normally live alone, and only “live together” during the breeding season. A female panda is pregnant for about 5 months before giving birth, and the newborn cub weighs only about 150 grams. Once the cub reaches two years old, it begins to live independently.
2. Morphological characteristics of the giant panda
The giant panda has a stout, bear-like body and a plump, well-fed appearance, with a round head and a short tail. The head and body length is 1.2-1.8 m, and the tail length is 10-12 cm. The body weight is 80-120 kg, and the heaviest can reach 180 kg. Captive pandas are slightly heavier, and males are generally slightly larger than females. The fur color on the head and body is distinctly black and white, but the black is not pure black, and the white is not pure white either; rather, the black has a brownish tinge, and the white has a yellowish tinge. Individuals in the Qinling region tend to be larger, with coarse body hair, and the belly fur is slightly brownish in color. In the Minshan Mountains (especially in Qingchuan and Pingwu), individuals are smaller, and their body hair is finer than the former, with the brown on the belly fur not obvious, but individuals in the Liangshan Mountains are not smaller.
The black-and-white appearance helps it hide in the trees of dense forests and on snowy ground without being easily discovered by natural enemies. The relatively sharp claws and the well-developed, powerful forelimbs and hindlimbs help the giant panda quickly climb tall trees.
The giant panda has thick skin, with the thickest part reaching 10 mm. The skin thickness also differs on different parts of the body: the back is thicker than the sides of the belly, and the outer side of the body is thicker than the inner side. The average skin thickness is about 5 mm, and the skin is white and full of elasticity and toughness.
The giant panda's eyesight is extremely poor. This is because the giant panda has long lived in dense bamboo forests, where the light is very dim and there are many obstacles, causing its vision to become very short-sighted. In addition, its pupils are vertical slits like a cat's. Therefore, at dusk when night falls, they can still be active.
In fact, long ago, the giant panda was a very ordinary animal in China. However, due to various reasons, pandas died in large numbers, so their numbers also dropped sharply. I hope that one day in the future, when there are enough pandas, we will return their freedom and let them return to nature.