Mammals · Ursids

Giant Panda

Ailuropoda melanoleuca

Vulnerable

The giant panda is a bear native to the mountain bamboo forests of central China, instantly recognized by its bold black-and-white coat. Despite belonging to the order Carnivora, its diet is almost entirely bamboo — a specialization so extreme it has reshaped the animal’s anatomy, behavior and daily routine around a single, low-nutrition plant.

Giant panda eating bamboo in a forest clearing

Classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Ursidae

Genus: Ailuropoda

Species: melanoleuca

Note: A true bear, not related to the unrelated red panda despite the shared name

Size

4–6 ft long; 2–3 ft at the shoulder on all fours.

Weight

150–300 lbs; males are somewhat larger than females.

Habitat

Temperate mountain bamboo forest in a handful of ranges across central China, primarily Sichuan, at 5,000–10,000 ft elevation.

Description

A stocky bear with distinctive black-and-white markings — black patches around the eyes, ears, legs and shoulders on an otherwise white body.

Diet

99% bamboo — stems, leaves and shoots — consuming 20–40 lbs a day, up to 12 hours spent eating.

Digestion

Retains a carnivore’s short, simple gut and extracts only around 20% of the nutrition from the bamboo it eats, forcing near-constant feeding.

The "sixth finger"

A modified wrist bone functions as an opposable thumb, letting a panda grip bamboo stalks the way no other bear can.

Communication

Bleats, honks and chirps rather than a bear’s typical growl; scent marking is the primary way pandas, who are largely solitary, communicate territory and readiness to mate.

Gestation

About 95–160 days, varying widely due to delayed implantation.

Birth & Litter Size

Usually a single surviving cub (twins occur but the mother generally raises only one), weighing about 3–5 oz at birth — roughly 1/900th of the mother’s weight, among the smallest newborn-to-mother ratios of any placental mammal.

Sexually Mature

4–8 years.

Life Span

15–20 years in the wild, up to 30 in captivity.

Did You Know?

A newborn giant panda weighs about as much as a stick of butter — roughly 1/900th of its mother’s weight, one of the largest size gaps between a newborn and its mother of any placental mammal.

Did You Know?

Despite being classified in the order Carnivora, a giant panda's diet is around 99% bamboo, and it retains the short digestive tract of a meat-eater, extracting only a fraction of the nutrition other herbivores get from plants.

Did You Know?

A panda's wrist bone is enlarged into a false "sixth finger" that works like a thumb, letting it grip bamboo stalks — a feature no other bear species has.