#我来唠家常#
▲ Panda mother and son say hello to everyone. Photo courtesy of Visual China
-The Legend of the Gentleman of Things-
I really love pandas so much
Could it be that the previous life was a bamboo?
If you look for an animal to represent China, it may be a "dragon", and if you look for an animal that exists in reality, it is undoubtedly the giant panda. Black and white symbolize the yin and yang of Tai Chi in Chinese culture, and are the exclusive colors of the giant panda, an endemic species to China.
▲ Who said my world is black and white? I still have pink, slightly. Photo courtesy of Visual China
The giant panda, a "national treasure", has long served as China's ambassador. Globally, a zoo without giant pandas is by no means the world's top zoo, from the Olympic Fuwa "Jingjing" to Hollywood's Kung Fu Panda, "Panda Fever" has swept the world and has never cooled down.
▲ Giant pandas conquer Chengdu, and panda elements can be seen everywhere in Chengdu. Photo courtesy of Visual China
If you talk to a group of foreigners about Sichuan, they may have little interest in Sichuan cuisine and hot pot, but when it comes to giant pandas, they will sit around and ask this and that with their eyes shining. In fact, pandas do not only live in Sichuan, but also in Gansu and Shaanxi. We know too little about pandas compared to what they have done to us.
▲ Sichuan Wolong, a giant panda in the snow. Photo courtesy of Visual China
Who's bear-like?
Giant pandas, red pandas, giant cats and bears?
Whether the panda is a cat or a bear seems to be an unquestionable question. Comparing the black bear, the Chinese pastoral cat and the giant panda seems to be clear. But what about black bears, cats, and red pandas, or even a raccoon?
▲ It doesn't matter if you can't tell the difference, because a panda is a panda! Photo courtesy of Visual China
Today's panda refers to the giant panda, but originally, the name "panda/panda" belonged only to the red panda, which was considered a new species between a bear and a raccoon. In the sixties of the 19th century, the West came into contact with the "black and white bear", and zoologists at that time believed that its skull structure, dentition, hairy feet and other characteristics were similar to those of the red panda bear (red panda), and named it "cat bear". As a result, pandas are divided into big and small, so much so that people now have to call "little pandas" as giant panda cubs.
▲ What's wrong? The little panda can't be called a red panda or my pot? Photo courtesy of Visual China
Giant pandas have similar appearances, habits (such as eating bamboo) and geographic distribution to red pandas, and are good neighbors even in zoos. However, these two cute big/small guys are not easy to classify scientifically, some say they belong to the same family of bears, some say they belong to a separate family of pandas, and the mainstream view now is that giant pandas should be classified as bears, and red pandas are listed separately as red pandas, which are most closely related to raccoons in the Americas.
▲ Why is the red panda a new species, but the little raccoon is simply noodles? Photo courtesy / Visual China
The name "panda" is actually a beautiful misunderstanding, the literal translation of the Latin word for giant panda is big cat bear, and it is still called so in Taiwan today. During the Anti-Japanese War, Chongqing once exhibited giant panda specimens at an exhibition, and the staff wrote down the Latin name according to the left-to-right writing habit of Western Chinese, and still wrote "panda" in Chinese from right to left, which caused misinterpretation by tourists and the media.
▲ Cuteness is justice. Photo courtesy of soogif
In terms of language alone, "panda" sounds more cute than "panda", and in the English-speaking world, although it is generally recognized that pandas do not belong to the "red panda family", they still retain the name panda, and the sense of hearing is naturally much more cute than that of a certain bear.
Pandas don't threaten, you and I are vegetarians?
Giant pandas are bears, and although 99% of their diet is bamboo, they are real carnivores, with a short digestive tract, similar to jackals, tigers and leopards, far from other "vegetarians".
▲ I know you can stare at me all day, save it and keep scrolling down. Photo courtesy of soogif
Switching to a vegetarian diet may be the reason for the "survival of the fittest", but scientists have recently discovered that giant pandas get a lot of protein from bamboo, and the proportion of energy is actually similar to eating meat. Giant pandas are experts at eating bamboo, they only eat about 27 types of bamboo, and the parts they choose vary from season to season, especially those with high protein content. It looks like you're being a vegetarian, but you're actually "eating meat"!
▲ From 11 p.m. on November 9, 2011 to 5 a.m. the next day, an infrared camera installed in the Laohegou forest area of Pingwu County, Sichuan Province, filmed the whole process of a wild giant panda grabbing the carcass of wildebeest and eating it. Photo courtesy of Visual China
In order to better eat bamboo, giant pandas have evolved a series of "eating tools", such as a "pseudo-thumb" in addition to five fingers - in fact, the wrist bone has developed into a fake thumb with fur but no claws, so that it can better grasp bamboo. Bamboo has a hard texture, so it needs hard teeth and strong chewing muscles, which also makes pandas the cutest meat eaters with large heads and thick necks. At the same time, in order to prevent scratches from bamboo chips, the stomach wall of the giant panda has also become thicker.
▲ Take a closer look at the piece of skin next to my thumb, this is a pseudo-thumb. Photo courtesy of Visual China
Bamboo is a high-fiber food, and the teeth and digestive tract of giant pandas maintain the structure of carnivores, the digestion efficiency is low, and the nutrient absorption is slow, so the solution can only be to eat and eat constantly. Scientists once observed an adult giant panda: within 48 hours, the giant panda spent 25 hours eating bamboo, eating 154 kilograms, and pulling 96 times while eating, a total of 85 kilograms of poop, which is quite bitter and diligent!
▲ Guess what this is made of? Forget it, I don't think you should guess. Because it's all bamboo, it doesn't stink that much. Photo courtesy of Visual China
Globetrotting: How did a "national treasure" conquer the world?
The giant panda is an ancient species that has lived on Earth for at least 8 million years. But there are still many such "living fossils" in China, why have giant pandas become "national treasures"?
▲ What is a national treasure? Photo courtesy of Visual China
Historically, giant pandas have been widely distributed in the central and southern regions of the mainland, as far north as Zhoukoudian in Beijing, and as far south as Vietnam, Thailand, and northern Myanmar. Due to the inconvenient information communication of ancient people, it was often false, so there are several names of suspected giant pandas in the literature, such as Pixiu, tapir, and Suyu...... The same name may refer to multiple animals. In the "Book of Songs", it is said that Su Yu "has white tigers and black stripes, and does not eat living things", which is probably a panda bear.
▲ The living space of pandas is becoming less and less, which is related to changes in the natural environment and the expansion of human beings. Repent, earthlings. Photo courtesy of Visual China
In ancient texts, those "suspected pandas" may have been beasts used in tribal warfare, ornaments in the emperor's forbidden garden, or their furs may have been used as gifts for ministers. In the process of historical development, due to the influence of geology, climate and human activities, the range of giant pandas has become smaller and smaller, and finally narrowed to the high mountains and deep valleys in the Sichuan Basin and the Qinling Mountains.
▲ Giant panda specimens collected by Armand David are now in the French National Museum of Natural History. Photo courtesy of Visual China
Therefore, when the French missionary (and amateur naturalist) Armand David discovered the "black and white bear" in the mountains of Baoxing, Sichuan Province in 1869 and introduced it to the world, not to mention shocking foreigners, most Chinese also heard of this amazing animal for the first time. In the decades that followed, during China's most turbulent era, giant pandas became the target of Western explorers and suffered along with 40,000,000 Chinese.
▲ Ruth Harkness, the first "Panda Lady" to bring live giant pandas out of China, and "Su Lin", the first lingering panda. Photo/"The Lady and the Panda"
In 1941, in order to thank the United States for its assistance in medical treatment and food, the Chinese government in the midst of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression presented the giant pandas "Panda" and "Pandi" to the United States as national gifts, thus opening China's unique diplomatic model - panda diplomacy. Between 1955 and 1982, 24 giant pandas went abroad to shoulder diplomatic missions as ambassadors for the People's Republic of China. In 1972, Nixon's visit to China and the arrival of giant pandas "Lingling" and "Xinxin" in the United States opened the door to the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and the United States......
▲ On July 5, 2017, in Berlin, Germany, the panda pavilion built for the giant pandas "Mengmeng" and "Jiaoqing" in Germany was officially opened, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended the opening ceremony. Photo courtesy of Visual China
The good days of "giving away for nothing" came to an end in 1982, and since then it has developed into a lend-lease model. At present, China has established long-term cooperative research relationships with 14 zoos in 12 countries around the world, and a total of 40 Chinese giant pandas (including their cubs) live overseas. The leaser pays $500,000 to $1 million a year in rent to China, and $600,000 for each cub born to the panda, which belongs to China and must return to China after the age of three......
▲ On July 6, 2017, Taipei, the giant panda "Yuan Zai" was enjoying a fruit birthday cake on his 4th birthday, and his mother was a gift to the giant panda "Yuan Yuan" from Taiwan. Photo courtesy of Visual China
Even in the face of "unequal treaties", the enthusiasm of countries around the world remains undiminished. In order to bring the panda to the Netherlands, the local government has been preparing for 16 years, going through three prime ministers and traveling back and forth to China more than 20 times. In 2017, giant pandas Wu Wen and Xingya moved into Pandaisa, a luxury panda pavilion built at the 7 million euro cost of the Ovhihanz Zoo in the Netherlands. And the rental fee, construction fee, and living cost add up, and this zoo can pay for itself in less than two months. In Japanese, there is a special word for "Panda Solicitation (客送せパンダ)", if it weren't for the pandas, who would go to the zoo?
▲ The most luxurious panda pavilion overseas, all the materials are derived from China, with a strong Chinese style. Photo courtesy of Visual China
In the next life, do you want to be a panda?
In addition to eating, sleeping, and pulling, you can also become a sought-after star by selling cuteness and lying down, and it is good to be a panda in the next life, which may be the wish of most people. In fact, the life of a panda is much harder than we think.
▲ I often think about how bears should live at the top of the tree. Photo courtesy / Picture Worm Creative
How did baby pandas come into this world?
A panda is not so easy to be born, for example, mating pandas in captivity is more "difficult". Breaking away from the habit of fighting males in the wild and obtaining the right to mate, simply putting two pandas in a cage can only be an "action movie" without love. The most famous example is the failed marriage of the London Zoo's "Ji Ji" (who is also the prototype of the "WWF" WWF emblem) and the Moscow Zoo's "An An" in the sixties of the 20th century, when the two pandas did not look at each other and fought each other, becoming an awkward episode in Cold War history.
▲ The following two pictures are ashamed, and the children cover their eyes. Photo courtesy / Picture Worm Creative
The sphere of influence of a wild giant panda is about 4-7 square kilometers, and in fact, the daily activity radius is only 500 meters. This is especially true of pandas in captivity, where a quarter of more than 130 pandas are now descendants of the late giant panda Pan Pan. To this end, China established the "Giant Panda Breeding Research Group" in 1990, and after more than ten years, the number of artificially bred giant pandas has steadily increased, and the method is relatively direct - artificial insemination.
▲ In 2008, at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in Sichuan, two giant pandas mated under the watchful eye of the staff. Photo courtesy / Picture Worm Creative
In fact, the giant panda is not as pure as people think, scientists have observed in the wild that the male giant panda has been climbing 42 times in 70 minutes in the process of "round house" with the female, of which 39 times have been successful. Equally surprising is the "contest to recruit relatives" when choosing a mate, where two male giant pandas duel for love, while the female giant panda watches the battle from the sidelines (such as hanging from a tree), making a seductive cheering sound of "bleating", which is full of sexuality.
▲ I'm sorry to disturb, but I was in the tree before you guys. Photo courtesy of soogif
"Xiongsheng" is also so difficult
From the 3 to 10 months of pregnancy of the panda mother to the birth of the cub, a difficult period of "bear birth" has just begun.
▲ On September 13, 2019, in Berlin, Germany, the giant panda "Mengmeng" living in Berlin, Germany, gave birth to a pair of twins, which is the first time that a giant panda leased overseas by China has given birth in Germany. Photo courtesy of Visual China
The average newborn baby panda weighs only 120 grams, while the adult panda weighs 80-120 kilograms, almost 1,000 times larger. Not only that, the newborn panda's "eyes" are small black dots without vision, the "ears" have no auricles, no hearing, and the immune organs are not fully developed. The survival rate of panda cubs is low, in the eighties of the 20th century, the giant panda "Jingji" in the Shanghai Zoo had conceived 6 twins and 1 triplet in 6 years, a total of 15 cubs, none of them survived.
▲ On September 9, 2019, at Bruglet Paradise Zoo in Belgium, the full moon photo of twin panda cubs. Photo courtesy of Visual China
lived past the first year of junior high school, and had to survive through the fifteenth. Newborn baby pandas are pink balls of meat, and at about 15 days, the skin of the baby's shoulder straps, limbs, and ears gradually turns black (it is said to be camouflage), and the sparse back hair also becomes thick, and it takes about 30 days to have a panda-like appearance. However, it takes 6-7 weeks for them to open their eyes to see the world, and 60 days before they can hear, and it will not be until 3 months later that they can really see the six ways and hear the eight directions.
▲ The baby panda is too small and needs the protection of its mother. Photo/Visual China
The mother panda is the best mentor and the strictest coach, the cubs first learn the skills of independent survival with their mothers, and when they are one and a half years old to two years old, the mother panda will forcibly let them leave and go out into the world alone. On the other hand, with the continuous expansion of the captive-bred population, how to keep captive pandas wild and return to the mountains and forests has become a major issue in front of "human mothers".
▲ On April 29, 2009, the Sichuan Provincial Forestry Department released the wild giant panda "Luxin" rescued in Luding County, Ganzi Prefecture into the Liziping Nature Reserve of Shimian County, Ya'an City. Photo courtesy of Visual China
It has been exactly 150 years since Armand David's "scientific discovery of the giant panda" in 1869. In the past 150 years, the giant panda has gone from being hunted to being protected, from captivity to artificial breeding, from "endangered" to "vulnerable", and it is precisely in these 150 years that it has become an animal star frantically sought after by the people of the earth, a spokesperson for animal protection, and a change in the history of animals and humans.
Today, 150 years later, it is not so much that giant pandas are inseparable from humans, but that humans are inseparable from giant pandas.