Why do pandas not eat meat

Raubenheimer and his colleagues wanted to learn more about this extreme herbivore way of life. So they put GPS trackers on two giant pandas and followed their movements throughout the year. They discovered that the pandas followed the protein. At the start of the cycle, they ate Bashania fargesii leaves until they got the chance to feast on young shoots, which contained more protein. The more the shoots grew, the more their protein was diluted by fiber.

That prompted the pandas to move to higher ground, where Fargesia qinlingensis grew. First they ate the shoots, but these, too, went from being protein-rich to fiber-rich as they grew.

The pandas responded by switching to the leaves. These tided them over until they went back down the mountain and resumed eating B.

For the most part, the ratio of protein to fat and carbohydrates in the feces was similar to, or lower than, the ratio in the bamboo. That meant the bears were absorbing and using the protein they worked so hard to find. Silvia Pineda-Munoz, a diet ecology researcher at Georgia Tech, said the findings show that pandas are resourceful. The work also shows that classifying an animal as herbivore or carnivore is more complex than one might assume.

She joined the newsroom in and spent several years working on the criminal justice team. This means that when panda bears evolved from their meat-eating ancestors, the diet change from meat to bamboo required far less evolutionary modification than previously suspected.

Scientists have yet to determine when the fateful diet change took place in the evolutionary timeline of pandas. In March, the country announced plans for the construction of a new national park where the bears can reproduce undisturbed.

In the wild, pandas roam China's bamboo-clad mountain ranges, eating 10 to 20 kilograms 22 to 44 pounds of the plant a day. But who wants to eat alone? A shared feast is twice as tasty! Pandas are no loners, say scientists in the US and China. They put GPS collars on five pandas and tracked them over two years.

To the researchers' surprise, three of the animals spent much of the fall - outside the spring mating season - living side-by-side. The endangered giant panda is an elusive animal.

Until now, scientists have usually monitored them in zoos and breeding centers. Active at night, they sleep through the day in caves or hollow tree trunks.

Even though the study suggests pandas are more sociable than previously thought, their relationships tend to be platonic. Female pandas are only sexually receptive for two days each year - the rest of the time, anything more than friendship is off the menu.

Panda cubs are always a sensation - whether they are born in the wild or in captivity. The cute, furry youngsters begin to crawl at 75 to 80 days old. These are the first steps of a long journey - pandas live for 20 or even 30 years. There is little glamour to a panda's start in life. Weighing just 90 to grams 3 to 4 ounces , with a long tail and no fur, a newborn panda cub looks more like mouse or mole than the iconic beast it will grow into.

Scientists have carried out extensive research aimed at saving the giant panda from extinction. The results showed that modern and ancient pandas had a moderately different isotope balance from one another, suggesting differences in their diet.

Nevertheless, it still remains a mystery why pandas evolved their super- specialized limited diet of just bamboo. As you can imagine, bamboo is not the most nutritious of foodstuffs, so pandas have to eat between 12 to 38 kilograms 26 to 83 pounds of the stuff each day. As a result, they have a lower metabolic rate and a very lazy lifestyle. To find out why pandas developed their taste for bamboo, the team are planning to look at even more panda fossils.

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