In 1869, while living in China, the French missionary Armand David stumbled upon a strange black and white animal skin in the home of a family surnamed Li. The owner told David that the locals generally called this animal "flower bear", "white bear" and "bamboo bear", and the temperament was very docile. This sparked David's interest in exploring new species, and he hired 20 local hunters to help him find the "white bear" trail.
Unfortunately, in order to facilitate carrying, the hunters brought back only the corpses of the "white bears". But David did not give up, he once again launched the hunter to help him find, and finally recaptured a "bamboo bear" on May 4 of the same year and named it black and white bear.
However, when he happily prepared to take it back to France, the black and white bear fell in Chengdu because of the long journey. In desperation, David had to make a specimen and bring it back to the National Museum of France for display. Eventually, miller Eduard, director of the French National Museum, officially named it "Big Cat Bear" after research.
The panda we now call it is mainly due to the fact that when it was exhibited at the Pingming Zoo in Chongqing in 1939, its signs were written in a popular international writing format, from left to right. However, the customary reading method of that era was still from right to left, so visitors almost always pronounced "cat bear" as "panda". Over time, such a name has been passed down.
In fact, pandas have been around in China for an absolutely longer period of time than most species that exist today. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, it was recorded that a creature called 貊 lived, which lived on the top of The Mountain and fed on copper and iron all year round. Later, Guo Pu of the Jin Dynasty made a special annotation on this, indicating that this creature had black and white skin, claws as sharp as a knife, and the appearance looked similar to a bear. Of course, with regard to the living habits of this creature, Guo Pu had no way to give a corresponding explanation.
So why is this animal thought to eat copper and iron? In fact, there are two main reasons for this. On the one hand, under the influence of ancient legends, people spontaneously believe that this animal itself eats copper and iron, after all, there is no wonder in the world. Just like the Nian Beast, no one knows whether the Nian Beast really exists, but to this day, people have the impression that the Nian Beast itself is afraid of fire, firecrackers and red, and there is no scientific basis for it.
On the other hand, the abnormal behavior of giant pandas creates an illusion for humans, and when there is a shortage of food in winter, the giant pandas will come to the human villages below the mountain to find food. With an excellent sense of smell, giant pandas can easily find kitchen utensils such as iron pots and pans that hold food, and will crush these iron utensils when eating. When people saw this scene, it was not surprising that the giant panda would swallow copper and iron.
Not only that, in 1981 and 1993, newspapers also reported that giant pandas went to villagers' homes to eat iron pots, and people also saw the presence of broken iron pieces in the giant panda's feces. Therefore, it is concluded that even if this animal does not use copper and iron as its staple food, it does not have to worry about eating copper or iron by mistake.
It is worth mentioning that the question of why the once fierce iron-eating beast has now become a national treasure of "selling cuteness for a living" has been explained in the mythological story. Legend has it that when the panda was still called an iron-eating beast, it followed Xuan you to fight with the Yellow Emperor as a mount, and after being defeated, the Yellow Emperor sealed the panda's ferocious attributes, which made its temperament become very "docile" and has been passed down to this day.
In fact, in the evolution of the real world, the evolution of pandas is not like this. Judging by the oldest giant panda fossils we humans have found today, its existence can begin with the late Miocene about 8 million years ago. Probably no one can imagine that this stupid and cute creature has been passed down for 8 million years, and can be called a "living fossil". After all, until September 2016, giant pandas were among the endangered animals.
The ancestors of giant pandas are called the first pandas, but the giant pandas we see now are not the same as the first pandas. At the beginning of the Pleistocene, 3 million years ago, two branches of the panda began to appear. One of these branches continued to evolve in south-central China, while the other branch migrated to places like North China, South China, and even Myanmar and Vietnam. However, no matter which branch, the omnivorous characteristics of eating bamboo have gradually emerged.
By the time of the Pleistocene, 500,000-700,000 years ago, this trait had formed an inherent habit of survival, and it was almost very similar to the behavior and life of modern giant pandas. One of the most powerful proofs is that on the panda's paws, in addition to the five toes, there is another "thumb", and the role of this thumb is mainly to help the giant panda better hold the bamboo. In academia, scientists have named it "radial sesamoid bone".
In modern society, pandas are loved by more and more people with their cute appearance. But if we are deceived by its appearance, we are doomed to be hurt very badly. Scientists have found that although the giant panda is an omnivore, its bite force has exceeded that of most carnivores in the world. There are hardly any opponents other than polar bears, tigers, lions and brown bears. Once the giant pandas are furious, no one can defeat them without the help of external forces.
Many people can't help but wonder, with the support of such a strong body, why did the giant panda once mix with the ranks of endangered animals? This is mainly due to the following reasons.
The first is the impact of human activities, while humans continue to cut down forests, in fact, it means that the living home of giant pandas is becoming smaller and smaller. From 1950 to 1985, for example, our country set up a lot of deforestation areas. After more than 20 years of logging and harassment, the pandas in 6 logging areas eventually disappeared, and a small number of pandas remained in 10 logging areas.
Not only that, human capture, poaching and smuggling have made the living situation of giant pandas worse. When humans use various tools or various traps to hunt down giant pandas, they have no chance to escape with brute force.
After the range of human activities became larger and larger, the giant pandas could only be forced to retreat to higher altitudes in the mountains. But there is very little bamboo in those places, and more importantly, once the bamboo blossoms, the giant panda will lose its life due to lack of food.
As early as 1975, the blossoming of arrow bamboo in the Minshan area led to the death of nearly 140 giant pandas, which was an absolute fatal blow to the few giant pandas in a certain area. In the case of human intervention and a harsher natural environment, it is only natural that giant pandas have become endangered animals.
Fortunately, with the passage of time, the state has paid more and more attention to giant pandas and done better and better to protect them. Nowadays, giant pandas do not have to worry about artificial dangers affecting their survival, but their own laziness is still a problem to be solved.
On the one hand, it is lazy in reproduction and reproduction, pandas are different from other animals, and they do not seem to have any interest in reproduction. According to the data survey, the net fertility rate of pandas themselves is only 1.067, and they reproduce only once every two years on average, and each time they will only have two births, which makes their population unable to increase quickly. Not only that, after wild pandas give birth to their cubs, female pandas simply do not have much ability to feed them, which also leads to a lower survival rate than other animals.
On the other hand, it is laziness in daily life actions, as long as anyone who has seen pandas in the zoo knows that pandas do not like sports at all. If you compare it to a monkey, it's two extremes. Many people may mistakenly think that large animals seem to be like this, in order to save physical strength to avoid excessive exercise. But in fact, the reason why giant pandas don't like sports is not so.
Although the panda has the same strong body as the lion and the tiger, its food is completely different from the lion and the tiger. Bamboo, a food that only allows them to avoid starvation, simply does not provide enough energy for pandas to move freely. It is precisely because of this that we see in our daily lives that the movement of pandas is extremely slow.
Although modern giant pandas are deeply loved by people, we must also find ways to solve these two problems about it. Otherwise, when the panda has become accustomed to accepting people's instructions for all actions, it will lose its ability to survive. But for now, pandas don't have to worry too much about such things happening, after all, just its stupid and cute appearance, we have no resistance, naturally will not "abandon" them.
Not only our country, but also other countries love pandas, especially the unique "panda diplomacy", which has made China and other countries in the world have a deeper friendship. As early as 1972, US President Richard Nixon took the initiative to visit China, hoping to change the relationship between the two countries. To this end, in order to show its sincerity to the United States, our country has specially donated two giant pandas, "Lingling" and "Xingxing" to the United States.
After pandas arrived in the United States with American diplomats, the government was responsible for the whole process of protection, and the size of the security force was even like protecting a visiting diplomatic envoy from a certain country. Not only that, but nearly 8,000 people in Washington braved the rain to greet them, just to see for themselves what the legendary giant panda looks like.
In addition to the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union, France, britain, Spain and other countries have also received giant pandas from our country. Without exception, when every panda arrives in a foreign country, it will cause quite a stir in the local area. Especially in the first month of the panda's stay in the zoo, the number of people who come to visit the panda every day is innumerable, which promotes the local economic consumption to a certain extent.
However, later, pandas sent to live abroad often have the problem of water and soil dissatisfaction, which makes us very distressed. So in 2007, China officially stated to the outside world that China would no longer give giant pandas to other countries, but this did not mean that panda diplomacy was over. If a certain country can guarantee the quality of life and living environment of giant pandas and pay a guarantee, then China is very willing to make the friendship between the two countries go further.
Since then, panda diplomacy has been carried out in the form of leasing pandas. In order to be able to obtain giant pandas, even if they live for a short time, various countries are trying to compete for a few places in China.
After 2016, giant pandas have changed from endangered animals to endangered animals, which is enough to prove that our country is absolutely doing a very good job in protecting giant pandas. However, we cannot be satisfied and proud of this, after all, there are many endangered animals like giant pandas, and there is still a long way to go to protect wildlife, and we still need to continue to work hard.