Today is Panda Day! A good enough excuse to celebrate these adorable creatures, a symbol of WWF since 1961
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himToday is Panda Day! While not widely recognized globally, March 16 is marked by devotees of this animal as Panda Day - a good enough excuse to celebrate these adorable creatures! Symbol of the WWF since 1961, the year in which the association was founded, the giant panda, originally from China, is famous all over the world.
But how much do you know about this adorable creature? Let's find out more about the panda.
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The discovery of the panda
The panda has been known to the Chinese tradition since the most remote times and thanks to its innate charisma it has always been at the center of particular attention from the Chinese people.
The discovery of this animal by the Western world dates back to 1869, when the French Jesuit naturalist, Father Armando David, described it for the first time.
The panda once lived throughout southern and eastern China, as well as in neighboring Myanmar and northern Vietnam, but the expansion and development of the human population has confined it to the dense bamboo and coniferous forests of the mountain ranges of the Southwest China, Sichuan province, Shan-si Gansu.
An endangered species
Even if from 4 September 2016 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has formalized its passage into the Vulnerable category, the risk of extinction of the panda is still high: this is because the habitat of these animals is however shrinking to due to the destruction of forests, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find bamboo shoots to feed on. The giant panda is in grave danger.
Its forests in China decrease from year to year due to a wild and irresponsible deforestation and therefore it becomes more and more difficult for this animal to find bamboo shoots necessary for its sustenance.
The scarcity of food pushes them to move constantly, but in this way they are exposed to poaching and the thousand dangers of man-made infrastructures. According to the latest WWF census, there are exactly 1864 pandas left.
“For over 50 years, the panda has been the global icon of endangered species and the symbol of the WWF - underlines Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International -. Knowing that today the panda is one step further from extinction is, for those of us who are engaged in active conservation every day, extraordinary news. This result shows that when science and politics work together, involving local communities, exceptional results can be achieved in the conservation of biodiversity ".
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Scientific name: Ailuropoda melanoleuca.
Physical characteristics: Its coat is black and white, unmistakable.
IUCN vulnerability status: Vulnerable, category VU. Build: weight up to 125 kg, height 1,2 m-1,8 m
How much do you eat?
The panda eats up to 38kg of food every day, which is 95% bamboo shoots and leaves.
Vegetarian animal?
Not entirely, because occasionally it also feeds on the small mammals it manages to catch.
The false thumb
The giant panda has an unusual palm, equipped with a so-called "false thumb" and five fingers; the "false thumb" allows the panda to grab the bamboo canes, which it then brings to the mouth and peels with its teeth and then devours the pulp. It would seem, therefore, that the panda has six fingers, but from the anatomical point of view that "thumb" does not represent a finger.
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The panda lives in six mountainous regions of southwestern China, in sparse deciduous and coniferous forests with undergrowth rich in bamboo, mainly at altitudes between 1500 and 3000 meters
Is the panda aggressive?
We fell in love with it in the cartoon Kung fu panda, but is this animal aggressive? No, but it can become so in case of danger, especially in the presence of puppies.
Source: WWF
