Giant panda: From a meat-eating bear to a bamboo specialist

The giant panda is probably one of the best-loved animals in the world: a round face and bold black-and-white coat make it look utterly endearing. It belongs to the bear family, and although its ancestors ate meat, it has switched its menu to bamboo. Let's meet this "bamboo specialist".

Its body

The giant panda's cleverest feature is a "false thumb" — a wrist bone that evolved into a thumb-like structure, helping the panda grip bamboo stalks firmly. Its powerful jaw muscles and broad teeth snap and grind the toughest culms. Its black-and-white coat is good camouflage in both snow and shadow. An adult measures about 1.2 to 1.9 metres long.

Where it lives and what it eats

Bamboo is low in nutrients and calories, so a panda feeds for over ten hours a day and spends much of the rest sleeping. It eats almost nothing but bamboo, with the occasional small animal or egg. It lives in high, bamboo-rich mountain forests.

Where it is found

Giant pandas live in the mountains of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu in China. After many years of protection, wild numbers have risen, making the panda one of conservation's success stories. Curiously, a newborn cub is chalk-stick tiny — about one nine-hundredth of its mother's weight.

A note for grown-ups

You could talk with a child about how poor food means eating a lot: why does a panda eat all day? Because bamboo gives so little energy. Linking "food" and "time" helps a child see that an animal's daily rhythm is really decided by what it eats.