This article is reprinted with permission from "Museum" (WeChat ID: bowuzazhi).
I believe that many people, like me, have known red pandas since childhood. When I was a child, Beijing TV had a program called "Toshiba Animal Park", and I can't remember the content and format of the program at all, but I clearly remember that the symbol of the program was a red panda.
"Toshiba Animal Land", very revealing age
Yes, the red panda is the kind of brown-red little guy, not a fat smash that can only take black and white photos.
A little cute suddenly appeared!
Food determines the aroma of
The red panda is almost the standard in major zoos in China, because it is relatively not so rare, and it is also very cute.
At the beginning of the liberation period, the Beijing Zoo reopened and introduced red pandas. But the keeper didn't know what the "southerner" liked to eat and what to feed it, so he came up with an idea. The keeper found a rope, one end tied to the red panda, the other end of the rope was dragged in the hands of the keeper, so he "walked" the red panda in the zoo.
This is not to consume food after meals, but to let the red pandas find their own favorite food. As they walked, the red panda stopped beside a bamboo forest and began to feast.
Didn't expect that? It loves to eat bamboo
Wild red pandas eat mainly bamboo with tender stems and tender leaves, and they also eat the leaves and fruits of other plants, and they will also catch insects to eat, and even pick up bird eggs.
The diet is so light, presumably the feces are also very fragrant, right?
In fact, the red pandas living in the zoo do not smell very good. Because under cage conditions, the main food of the red pandas is not bamboo, but various fruits and other feeds.
Eat a grape
Image courtesy of tumblr.com
Feed is also tasted
However, it is said that in the feces of wild red pandas, the proportion of bamboo is very high, which is fully digested plant fibers, which are smaller and more delicate than those of giant pandas, and emit a clear fragrance similar to that of giant panda feces.
Feces taste similar, not just because of similar foods, but recent studies have found that the microbiota in the guts of the two animals is also highly similar.
Red pandas are 💩 green
Image courtesy of wikimedia.org
Who was the first Panda?
Giant pandas and red pandas are so similar in food, and their names are so similar, so what is the relationship between these two little cute?
It doesn't matter.
Molecular biology studies have shown that their ancestors parted ways about 4 million years ago, which can really be said to be "eight bamboo poles can't be beaten".
Good to think rua!
In 1825, the French zoologist Frédéric Cuvier officially published an article introducing the species of the red panda to the scientific community, which at the time was called Panda in English.
The naming of the giant panda is 45 years later — the giant panda was discovered by the French missionary Fr Jean Pierre Armand David in 1869 and named after the French zoologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards in 1870, whose English name is Giant Panda.
Later, perhaps because the color scheme of the giant panda was too eye-catching, the image was too pleasant, and the tonnage also occupied a clear advantage, the name Panda was slowly snatched away, and the red panda was forced to change its name to Red Panda and Lesser Panda.
"Ben little cute don't bother with you"
Image credit: pinterest
There are also two kinds of red pandas
If you've been to many zoos in China, the looks of the red pandas you see shouldn't make much difference – they're likely to be from Sichuan:
Domestic red pandas usually look like this
Image courtesy of Flickr
But if you go to a zoo abroad, you will find that the appearance of the red panda there is most likely not what you are familiar with.
In 2019, I saw the "white-faced red panda" at the Singapore River Ecological Park, as if the face had just been pulled out of the flour tank. Could it be an individual difference or a disease?
As a result, the second red panda came slowly, its face was also white, and there were actually two "white faces" in a play?
"White-faced" red panda
Originally, they were not red pandas from the Sichuan-Tibet region, but from the southern Himalayas.
Once thought to be two subspecies, red pandas in these two regions have been divided into two separate species by scientists in recent years – the Chinese red panda Ailurus styani and the Himalayan red panda Ailurus fulgens.
Separating the two is most likely the Brahmaputra
A and C (left) are Chinese red pandas
B and D (right) are Himalayan red pandas
Don't be bold, don't scare it
When visiting the zoo, you may have such a question: Why are there no animals in the exhibition area? Where did the red panda go?
In fact, they are moving or hiding in places that you are not easily able to see.
Baby hide
Because as predators, they need to hide themselves from predators, and as predators, they also need to hide themselves from prey. Therefore, zoos need to prepare hiding places for red pandas and other animals. Scientifically speaking, this belongs to the abundance of the environment.
When you find animals hiding in the zoo, be sure not to shout or slap the glass, which will make them more frightened, or even frightened and have nowhere to calm down.
Red pandas are quite timid, and when frightened, they usually stand up and open their arms.
Unsuspecting red pandas
Be startled by the sudden passing keepers
See watermark for image source
Be startled by the big rocks
Red Panda: It is the hand that moves the stone first!
Another dimension of environmental abundance is to provide the red panda with a cage environment that simulates nature.
The sports field design of Singapore's River Safari park is particularly interesting – there is a cable for red pandas to climb across the road where tourists walk. To put it bluntly, the red panda's "overpass" flies directly over the heads of tourists.
At that time, many people around were saying: "Does the red panda dare to walk like this?" Won't it fall? As soon as the words stopped, a red panda walked over our heads without hurrying and steadily.
Red pandas in the River Ecological Park
Everyone present covered their mouths with their hands, and lowered their voices and let out a faint exclamation from their mouths.
Here, the behavior of the red panda walking on the branches of the tree is satisfied, and this behavior is also known to the visitors; at the same time, the activity space of the red panda is expanded, and the audience present is also mentally stimulated.
Image courtesy of wikipedia
Written by | Wu Haifeng
Some of the images are from | 123rf.com.cn
WeChat Editor | glad
Source: Museum
Edit: Midoriko Kobayashi