Lesser Pandas

2 Pages 483 Words

In the wild, red pandas eat mostly bamboo leaves. They supplement this diet with berries, mushrooms, grasses and bark. Red pandas do eat some meat. They eat insects, bird eggs, bird nestlings, and may even catch an occasional mouse or bamboo rat. In zoos, wahs eat a specially formulated "panda biscuit" supplemented with cut fresh bamboo. The panda can grasp bamboo stalks with a specialized wrist bone called the radial sesamoid. This bone acts as sort of thumb. The wah's digestive system is like a carnivore's; it has a simple stomach and short intestine. This means it can not get the most from its low calorie diet. Wahs must spend a large portion of the day feeding. To help make up for this, they have a low metabolic rate. Because the lesser panda has the digestive system of a carnivore it cannot digest wood fibre. It therefore has to eat large amounts of bamboo every day in order to survive.



REPRODUCTION

The mating season is from January to March. During this time each female comes into breeding condition (oestrus) for about 14 days. The males fight over the right to mate with females in breeding condition. When the males meet they arch their backs and lower their heads, then stand up on their hind legs and beat each other with their paws. The gestation period is 90-150 days, with births occurring in May and June. There is a delayed implantation period, as in bears, and embryogenesis is probable about 50 days. Before giving birth the female lines a tree cavity or rock cleft with grass. Between 1 and 4 cubs are born. They are blind but fully covered with hair. Their eyes are open on the 18th day and they leave the nest for the first time at 90 days. They begin to eat solid food in autumn and are weaned before the onset of winter. They become sexually mature at 18 months. Infant mortality is very high. To produce enough milk for the cubs the mother has to eat three times the nor!
mal quantity of bamboo.



DESCRIPTION

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