As a national treasure, the image of the giant panda has always been the focus of our discussions. Not only does its round body look very cute, but even the color of its hair is very different.
Belonging to the same bear family, polar bears are white, black bears are pitch black, and giant pandas are black and white, which makes us have to think of what "ulterior secrets".
Their torsos and faces are white, like polar bears, but their limbs, ears, tails, and eye frames are black. If a person can tan such a part, it is probably lying on the beach wearing a vest and shorts to apply a mask. Obviously, the black of the giant panda is not sunburned... Nature is not without black and white animals, such as zebras. However, people's zebras are very regular black and white, and the giant pandas are so black.
Someone once asked curiously what a giant panda would look like if it didn't have black eyes. So some netizens gave P a look and almost thundered us to death. Warning, high energy ahead!
My old blood...
Or the black eyes look more accustomed...
So the question arises: why is the color of the giant panda so strange?
In fact, biologists are also curious about this question, and they have been trying to find a reasonable explanation. All questions about why xx animals look like this are ultimately due to Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection.
At present, why the zebra grows into black and white stripes is relatively easy to explain, because its black and white stripes are very evenly distributed. For example, the role of confusing natural enemies such as lions and mosquitoes.
However, the distribution of the black part of panda hair is not easy to explain, as Tim Caro, an animal behaviorist at the University of California, puts it, the difficulty of this problem is "to treat each part of the body as a separate area." Another difficulty is that "almost no other mammal has this appearance, which makes the analogy difficult." ”
In general, we think that the greatest function of animal colors in nature is camouflage, such as the demon flat-tailed lizard
Orchid mantis
Similarly, biologists have tried to introduce the panda's unique color from the perspective of camouflage.
When you think of giant pandas, the first thing that comes to mind is a national treasure that sits in the zoo and sells cuteness, nibbles on bamboo, and rolls around for a pleasant day. However, before humans knew how to tame animals, they lived in the environment of living at an altitude of 2600-3500 meters in the southwest region of China. We know that as the altitude increases, the temperature decreases. As a result, the summits and even the mountainsides of many high mountains are covered with snow all year round.
Therefore, if the giant panda lives in such an environment, the limbs will often be buried in the snow, and most of the exposed body is a white body, and the giant panda will become a big "energy" cat.
However, this does not fully explain the problem. If you want to disguise, why doesn't the whole body evolve to white?
Some people believe that both the ears and the limbs are the parts of the animal that are most vulnerable to low temperature damage. Therefore, these key parts of the giant panda have evolved into black, which is more convenient for absorbing heat and maintaining body temperature. As for the eye frame, some people have suggested that the black color of the eye frame can reduce the intensity of the light reflected by the snow and reduce the impact of glare on the vision of giant pandas.
Speaking of which, you may already sense something is wrong: Don't bears hibernate? In the winter, he hides in a cave, licks his bear paw when he is hungry, and waits until the spring to go out again...
The problem is that pandas are not ordinary bears. In the long process of evolution, the ancestors of pandas suddenly changed their habits. I don't know who they were inspired by, but they began to give up the meat life and began to eat bamboo. The problem is: the digestive tract of pandas is still carnivorous! Therefore, they have to eat about 30 kilograms of bamboo every day to maintain energy. Even so, these bamboos provide enough nutrients and calories for only one day, let alone enough fat to escape a cold winter.
So, if the panda hibernates, there is no need to wake up again...
Therefore, even if it is three or nine days, they have to come out to feed, and they also have to climb over the mountains and mountains to forage in a variety of environments. In such a situation, they need to avoid the damage of predators, and gradually evolve into such a color to disguise themselves.
In addition, Tim Carlo and his colleagues made another novel point after comparing 195 carnivores, including 39 bear subspecies. They believe that giant pandas do not blindly want to completely integrate themselves and the environment, but also express some information through the colors on their bodies. Studies have suggested that black bear ears may have the function of expressing aggression and are used to intimidate their enemies. Carlo thinks perhaps panda ears have the same effect.
In addition, for the black eye sockets of giant pandas, Carlo believes that this is a sign that giant pandas and their peers recognize each other. After all, animals with such eye frames are probably the only ones.
Of course, this is only the view of Carlo and others, and it may not be completely correct, but at least it seems to make sense. As Carlo said, the color of the giant panda is so unique that the whole world can't find a second one, which also brings more trouble to biologists. Perhaps, the fossil archaeology of the ancestors of giant pandas may tell us this secret, which is yet to be excavated by paleontologists.
In addition, giant pandas are not always black. In 1985, brown giant pandas were first discovered in China. As of March 2018, a total of six brown giant pandas have been found in China in a video taken at an observation site in Shaanxi Changqing National Nature Reserve.
Obviously, brown pandas are a special case, and it is speculated that they have been rejuvenated or genetically mutated, or homozygous of recessive genes. In short, in the long years, the black and white giant pandas defeated the brown and white giant pandas. Perhaps, the victory of black and white giant pandas also hides the secret of their hair color