The Giant Panda

The giant panda has become one of the world’s global conservation icons. They have been the subject of ongoing conservation efforts and in 2016 their IUCN status was downgraded from endangered to vulnerable.
One of their best know features is that they feed almost exclusively on bamboo despite being adapted to feed on meat. Fruits, carrion and bulbs make up the rest of their diet.
They are found exclusively in China where they will live in conifer forests.
Females produce a single pup or potentially twins. When twins are born the female will typically choose the strongest to raise.
Read on to learn more about these marvellous mammals.

Appearance
The giant panda is colored black and white. Across the majority of their body is white fur. On the limbs, across the shoulders, the ears and in a circle around the eyes the fur is black. The nose is also black in color.
Scientists have hypothesized a number of reasons for this coloration. Some of these reasons include that their colors make it easier for them to find each other in the wild. Another idea is that these contrasting colors provide camouflage when they are high in the treetops.
The coat is thick and woolly an adaptation that helps to keep them warm.
Like the other bear species giant pandas have a large head and a long muzzle. This assists them being able to smell incredibly well.
On the hand they have an extension of the wrist which is much like a thumb. This assists them in holding the bamboo that forms most of their diet. This is called the ‘opposable pseudo thumb.’ The jaw is large and strong so they can crunch through the bamboo.
Their tail is very short at 10.6-15.24cm (4-6in) but is actually the second longest tail of any bear.
From the head to the base of the tail giant pandas measure 1.5m (5ft) long. At the shoulder they stand 70-80cm (27-32in) tall. Females are slightly smaller than males weighing 70-100kg (155-220lb) while males weigh 86-125kg (190-275lb).

Food
Giant Pandas are omnivores. They feed almost exclusively on bamboo. This makes up 99% of their diet. They can feed on 30 species of bamboo. Pandas will spend up to 12 hours a day eating bamboo as it is so low in nutrition. This means they need lots of it as much of it just passes through them. This occurs as their body is designed to digest meat and cannot sufficiently remove the nutrients from bamboo. During their day they can consume up to 30kg (66lbs) of bamboo. Throughout the year they will change what part of the bamboo they eat as the nutritional content changes throughout the year.
Grasses, bulbs, fruits, insects and even carrion will form the other 1% of their diet. They are opportunistic hunters that eat most foods that they can come across.
Pandas get a large amount of their water needs from the bamboo. Bamboo is 50% water and some of it can be 90% water. This may provide some of their water but they still need to go to rivers and streams to get the rest of their water.

Range
Giant pandas are found in Asia. The only country in which they occur is China. Here they live in six small fragments of forest.
Most of their homes used to be in the lowlands of the Yangtze River basin. As humans have increased their presence in this area they have moved further up into the mountains.

Habitat
They inhabit conifer forests with a good under story of bamboo. It is important that these are old growth forests. These have hollow logs and tree stumps which pandas can den in.

 

 

Reproduction
Pandas live a solitary lifestyle and come together when it is time to mate. When the female is coming in to oestrus she will leave scent marks to alert the male to this. He will then seek her out so they can mate. He must find her quickly as the female is only able to mate for 3 days a year in the spring. This window is between March and May.
Once the male finds the female he will stick near to her anticipating the start of this 3 days. He will regularly smell her to see if he she is ready to mate and make groans and bleats to make her become attracted to him. Once she is ready they mate a number of times in an attempt to ensure she becomes pregnant. After this the male leaves to find another female that he can mate with.
If she is successful a panda cub will be born 95-160 days after they mate. In some rare instances twins or triplets are born. These can’t survive in most cases as the female can only take one out when she needs to leave the den on her back.  When compared with the size of the mother, pandas have the smallest mammal baby that is not carried in a pouch. The blind, helpless pup measures about 15cm (5.9in) long and weighs only 100g (3.5oz).
When the baby is not suckling it is carried in one of her paws. The mother will not eat or drink for several days after the birth. The eyes of the cub open after 50 to 60 days.
At 10 weeks of age the cub begins to crawl and at 14 weeks old the mother and cub begin to leave the den together. It is also at this time that its teeth begin to come through. When making their outings the baby will ride on the mothers back. This continues until they are 6 months old when they can begin to walk. Up until 7-9 months of age it is exists solely on milk. At this time they begin to taste bamboo. It will drink milk and eat bamboo up until 18 months of age when it moves solely to solid foods.
After 18 months the mother looks to send the baby off on its own. It may remain with her for up to 3 years though. Once they leave they establish their own territory.
The females will not begin breeding till they are 5 or 6 years old. Giant pandas stop breeding around 22 years of age. In this time they may only have 5 cubs. This low reproductive ability is part of the reason that giant pandas are so endangered.
 

Behavior
The panda is considered to be one of the most vocal bear species. Their most distinctive sound is their greeting which sounds like a bleat. Other vocalizations include honks, huffs, barks and growls while young cubs will croak and squeal.
The other method of communication used by pandas is scent marking. They have a gland under their short tails from which they secrete a waxy substance they place on most of the features of their environment. The scent is incredibly strong and can be smelt by a human up to a foot away. This mark provides information relating to the pandas gender, age, social status and if they are ready to mate.  Pandas aim to place these marks as high as possible. Occasionally they will use ‘handstands’ to get higher up a tree.
Currently it is thought that pandas are solitary and never meet with other pandas. They are known to maintain a home range which they mark out and defend. Some new research though suggests that pandas tolerate each other in their home ranges and will occasionally meet. Much research still needs to be done into this.

Predators and Threats
Predators of the pandas include tigers and leopards. These animals are in such low numbers or are extinct in the pandas range meaning they pose little threat. Up until 2 ½ years old panda cubs are under threat from golden cats, dholes, weasels and yellow throated martens.

Quick facts
The giant panda goes by many names. Locals call it the ‘bamboo bear’, Their scientific name, ‘Ailuropoda melanoleuca’ means ‘ cat-foot black and white.’ Their Chinese name translates as ‘Giant Bear Cat.’
There is a small number of brown and white pandas in the Qinling Mountains.
Giant pandas were first described for science in 1869 by the French Missionary Pere Armand David.
The panda is seen as a symbol for conservation the world over. It is used on the logo of the World Wildlife Fund.
Giant pandas are a national treasure in China and they only rarely allow them to go to international zoos. Having them is an honour for a zoos and requires them to donate $1 million a year to panda conservation.

TopTen Photos of the World

Blue Peacock

Blue Peacock, also called peafowl, any of three species of resplendent birds of the pheasant family, Phasianidae (order Galliformes).

Strictly, the male is a peacock, and the female is a peahen; both are peafowl.
The two most-recognizable species of peafowl are the blue, or Indian, peacock (Pavo cristatus), of India and Sri Lanka, and the green, or Javanese, peacock (P. muticus), found from Myanmar (Burma) to Java. The Congo peacock (Afropavo congensis), which inhabits the forested interior of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was discovered in 1936 after a search that began in 1913 with the finding of a single feather.In blue and green peacocks, the male has a 90–130-cm (35–50-inch) body and 150-cm (60-inch) train of tail feathers that are coloured a brilliant metallic green.
This train is mainly formed of the bird’s upper tail coverts, which are enormously elongated.
Each feather is tipped with an iridescent eye spot that is ringed with blue and bronze. In courtship displays, the cock elevates his tail, which lies under the train, thus elevating the train and bringing it forward. 

At the climax of this display, the tail feathers are vibrated, giving the feathers of the train a shimmering appearance and making a rustling sound.
The blue peacock’s body feathers are mostly metallic blue-green.
The green peacock, with a train much like that of the blue, has green and bronze body feathers. Hens of both species are green and brown and are almost as big as the male but lack the train and the head ornament.
In the wild, both species live in open lowland forests, flocking by day and roosting high in trees at night.

During the breeding season, the male forms a harem of two to five hens, each of which lays four to eight whitish eggs in a depression in the ground. The eggs are incubated by the peahen until they hatch some 28 days later.
The chicks have all of their feathers when they emerge from their eggs and are capable of flight roughly one week after hatching.
Most blue and green peafowl become sexually mature at age three. However, some male blue peafowl have been known to breed as early as age two.As an ornamental bird, the peacock is a staple resident of many of the world’s zoos and has long been famous throughout the Old World.
Green peacocks in captivity must be kept apart from other fowl, though, because of their aggressive disposition. Blue peacocks, though native to warm humid climates, can survive northern winters. Green peacocks, however, cannot tolerate much cold.
The Congo peacock is the only large phasianid in Africa. The cock is mainly blue and green with a short rounded tail. 

The hen is reddish and green with a brown topknot.
The species is smaller than those in genus Pavo, growing to roughly between 64 and 70 cm (25 to 28 inches) in length by adulthood.The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List classifies the blue peafowl as a species of least concern. However, the green peacock is classified by the IUCN as an endangered species.
The green peacock’s population declined significantly during the latter half of the 20th century because of over hunting and the destruction of large parts of its natural habitat; the species is now thought to number between 10,000 and 20,000 adults. The IUCN has classified the Congo peafowl as a vulnerable species. Its population has fallen to fewer than 10,000 adults because of hunting and habitat loss..