Animal of the Day: Giant Panda!

Panda bears are indeed bears. Though 99% of their diet is bamboo, they will occasionally eat small rodents and carrion. Pandas must eat 20 to 30 pounds of bamboo a day, and can poop up to  40 times a day due to their excessive eating.

Pandas live only in the mountains of China, they were driven out of the lowlands by humans. Pandas are endangered, but it seems the population in captivity and in the wild are on the rise.

It is suspected that pandas are black and white to provide camouflage in shady, snowy mountains. The panda has five fingers AND a thumb. Better to eat bamboo with. At 4 to 6 inches long, the panda has the second longest tail of all bears, behind the sloth bear.

Pandas typically live 20 years in the wild and 30 years in captivity.

Pandas are solitary and the females ain't tryin to hear about other females in their territory. Pandas do not hibernate nor establish long lasting dens.

The Western world first learned of panda's existence in 1869. Theodore Roosevelt Jr was the first American to shoot a panda in the 1920s. The first panda brought to America was put in the Brookfield Zoo in 1936.