Giant Panda diet?
Posted on: September 2, 2008 - 3:27pm
Offline
Giant Panda diet?
Random curiousity that I'm vexed with finding the answer to:
Why do Pandas mostly diet on bamboo? Their dental and digestive structures suggest that they would be much, much better off being carnivores (like their other cousins), and bamboo has notoriously poor nutritional value (meaning the bears have to consume lots of it to keep themselves going, and even then at a defecit to their energy reserves and reproductive abilities). Anyone know how this behavior got started?
Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
- Login to post comments
Pandas aren't actually bears.
?
Really? They aren't from the ursid family at all?
What branch are they on?
They are ursidae, but I thought they were genetically more closely related to the raccoon.
WTF is "gay bear dating" by the way? It's the add that appears here now - or don't I want to know.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
From Wikipedia: The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, "black-and-white cat-foot"
is a mammal classified in the bear family (Ursidae), native to central-western and southwestern China.[1] The panda was previously thought to be a member of the Procyonidae (raccoons and their relatives).
So Matt is wrong.
Also: the panda has a diet which is 99% bamboo. Pandas may eat other foods such as honey, eggs, fish, yams, shrub leaves, oranges, and bananas when available.
So they can eat, other stuff than bamboo, the question is why they don't do it more often. My answer would probably be that they are far too lazy for their own good.
A 10 year old could have edited that 10 minutes ago. It's wikipedia.
Dating service for homosexuals who want to date hirsute men (had a friend who was into bears)
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Because Noah dropped Pandas off in Asia after the big flood (unlike the brown and black bear where he traveled to North America) and since it was still flooded, the pandas climbed up Bamboo trees (they were the strongest) and there they sat for a very long time with nothing to eat but bamboo.
I like waiting for oblivion's suggestion that they are just lazy !
Slowly building a blog at ~
http://obsidianwords.wordpress.com/
The article is well-cited, Matt - but given that taxinomy is a sticky subject regardless, I'm not sure the classification is worth arguing over at this juncture. Here:
'Diet eccentricities, as it turns out have long marked the ursid family. Of all other members of the order Carnivora, bears have modified carnassial teeth that instead of being used for shearing and tearing meat, have been modified for use grinding a more omnivorous diet. The panda takes this dietary idiosyncrasy to its extremes, as they are almost exclusively restricted to bamboo, with only occasional supplementation from honey, fish, eggs, and yams. This specialization for bamboo eating is curious in that their gut is still that of a carnivore and they receive little nutritive value from the shoots they eat. This paradox leads the panda to eat as much as 20 to 30 pounds of bamboo a day in an effort to keep their Buddha-like bellies full. Since the giant panda's rate of energy intake is not much greater than its energy expenditure, they tend to stick to gentler mountain slopes and avoid social interactions in order to save their strength.'
That's from Bamboozled!, source #15 in the wikipedia article.
This is what's curious to me. I'll dare to speculate:
I wonder if Pandas developed this diet as a result of conscious objection (of some kind) to harming other animals to eat them?
Mere ponderance, of course. I really wonder what started this kind of diet for them.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Wikipedia is almost as acurate as britannica, see here: news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
Oh, of course!
*facepalms*
How could I have missed that one?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
I was going to try the Panda Diet, but I just cant eat a whole one in a single sitting.
A panda walks into a bar and orders a beer, never had one myself-over 50-no beer, never. The panda orders the special, beef stew- three bean salad and salsberry steak and another beer. After the food another beer, then another. Six beers later the panda pays his bill, $57.38 - plus a 12.03% tip (cheap bastard). Pulls out a gun fires six bulliets into the ceiling then struts out the door (who's gonna argue with a 700 lb bear).
The bartender is SHOCKED, he grabs a dictionary and looks up Panda bear (Not BEER) . He is dumbfounded untill he sees the definition. PANDA : native to asia, eats; shouts and leaves.
I've never known Websters to be wrong
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
i thought it has to do with their physical ability to yank the bamboo out of the ground and it's prevelence... ??
should be ".....shoots and leaves." , right? (instead of shouts)
One theory from this article:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26036245/
"...according to Megan Owen, a conservation specialist at the San Diego Zoo, there is a possible evolutionary explanation for the panda's seemingly foolish preference for bamboo: lack of competition. When pandas split off from the bear lineage about 3 million years ago, tasty and nutritious cuisine like meat, fruit, and nuts may have been difficult to obtain while bamboo was ubiquitous — a wide-open ecological niche. So there were two choices: Exert some serious effort to get the good stuff, or munch away on a seemingly inexhaustible supply of woody grasses."
I've been drinking and it was nothing more then a joke so LOL or ignor it.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Pandas are on my list of Stupid Animals That Would Die Regardless of Human Interference. They make the list because of their evolved diet, not because they're, themselves, stupid. They can eat other things, but it would seem they don't do it much, even when they're survival is threatened.
Other animals on my list:
I actually developed a rather lengthy list after watching so many documentaries on various animals. It seems that despite our interference, either hurting or helping them, some animals are destined to become extinct as they simply don't appear to have the adaptational advantage, or have adapted to advantage too particular and precarious a niche.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Actually doesn't it make more sense to have fewer offspring if resources are scarce? Humans are the only animals that do the opposite.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Those are good points, Thom (especially regarding the desert-dwelling elephants. Terrible niche to be occupying).
On the other hand, though...
Lookit the Panda! It wants you to hug it.
(...It's like a bug-zapper trap, except for humans.
)
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Oh, Pandas are SO CUTE! Elephants too... in a less cute kind of way. I pretty much hate birds; I think they're all crazy... not that I have a bias. I mean, if they survive good for them.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I think the point Thom was making, Matt, is that it's not a wise idea to nurse your offspring in the tundra and teach them to make it their habitat.
(...Of course, where else could they go? Migrate south? The nothern territories of Canada are rather inhabited, and I'm betting that the bears feel their odds are better on the shrinking ice that it is on the business of trigger-happy inuits).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Go on, hug it, I'll just sit here, laughing as it tears you to pieces.
Oh, but have you seen Cassorwarys, Thom? Look at this thing:
I was introduced to this thing first-hand at the Calgary zoo a few weeks ago. It's a freakin' DINOSAUR, man! Like, a REAL LIFE DINOSAUR! (Yes, I know all avians are dinos - but this one bears real, striking resemblence. I could watch one prowl for hours... in fact, I DID watch one prowl around for hours on end.
)
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
OMG I love pandas too............ let's trade recipes.
"Always seek out the truth, but avoid at all costs those that claim to have found it" ANONYMOUS
Pandas are one of rather naturally dying out species. (Ok, the bamboo is diminishing because of people, but if they would be really viable, they would start eating unwanted Chinese girls)
When an animal dies out, because it's niche in ecosystem is so sloppy, and it's a cute animal, then it's sad. We can't save them though, we've got to play with genes and create some new species to fill the gap in a list of cute animals. At least one should be with that specific black and white fur pattern, as a post-mortem tribute to pandas. But so far, I like the Belayev's domestic fox the most.
(the wisdom of Somethingawful.com)
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.