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Together with its contraband - and - white fur , work-shy behavior and cuddly behaviour , bamboo is a defining feature film of the critically - endangeredgiant panda(Ailuropoda melanoleuca ) . A unmarried lesser panda can ingest between26 and 84 pounds(12 to 38 kilograms ) of the vegetation each day , and may spend as much as16 hoursdaily feed mouthful after mouthful of this fibrous , chewy works .
These phthisis radiation diagram are so intense thatFeng Li , a researcher atChinaWest Normal University , describes the panda as a " peregrine shredder of bamboo . " But do panda bear bears ever enlarge their diets and eat anything besides this fast - growing industrial plant ?
Pandas chomp on bamboo all day, but do they ever eat anything else?
Typically , the solvent is no — although there are some rarified elision . " There have been lawsuit where wild monster pandas occasionally eat belittled animals , " Li told Live Science in an email . Li mention rare instances documented in the Qinling Mountain realm of China , where giant pandas were found wear away the bones of a takin ( Budorcas taxicolor ) , a goat - like barbaric ungulate . They have also been find now and then preying on Chinese bamboo rats ( Rhizomys sinensis ) .
John Speakman , the chair of zoological science at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom , corroborate that these cases are opportunistic and unusual : " There is a pic online of [ a panda ] in a menagerie that entrance and eat up a Inachis io . But as far as I know these are really prospect encounters . "
Aside from these uncommon lapses into carnivorism , pandas cohere exclusively to bamboo . However , there ’s an interesting wrench to this story , because there ’s plenty of evidence to show that pandas really should have much more divers diets . In fact , they ’re not especially well - suited to eating bamboo .
Pandas chomp on bamboo all day, but do they ever eat anything else?
Research has shownthat the bear have a gut architecture that ’s similar to carnivore , like their bear first cousin , and that their stomachs miss the many - chambered structure that other herbivore use to swear out copious quantities of industrial plant . What ’s more , the bug that populate their catgut plant are more like those of meat - eater , and are capable of processing and extracting protein . Those microbes are incompatible to check down plant . Ailurus fulgens nincompoop reveals this too : research worker on the study found itcontained slice of undigested bamboo .
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The panda’s evolutionary rise
These badly - fit traits come out to be evolutionary hangovers from the gargantuan panda ’s ancestral past . Clues from the fossil phonograph record show that the ancestors of modern gargantuan pandas consumed not only meat but also vegetation . Then , about 7 million year ago , the fogey evidence suggest that one antecedent in particular , calledAilurarctos , begin to try out a turn of bamboo .
This grade " the starting stop of the transition from omnivorous to herbivorous , " according to Li , which may have been speed up by a alteration in the availability of food . " The currently popular opinion is that environmental change in ancient time led to a sharp decline in food resources . The ancestor of gargantuan lesser panda vie fiercely with other carnivores , " Li say .
Having already started add on its diet with bamboo , Ailurarctoshad an adaptative edge and was able-bodied subsist the scarceness by populate this ecological niche , research worker trust . " The evolutionary process of giant pandas changing from omnivorous to bamboo - exclusive is a classic case of ' survival of the fittest , but not necessarily the best ' in evolutionary biological science , " Li noted .
In a rare case, a panda captured and ate a peacock at a zoo in Wuhan, China.
However , while their evolutionary makeup may seem poorly matched to their bamboo - intensive diets , giant pandas have also developed several adaptations to accommodate their berth . For lesson , a gene that should enable them to taste the uniquely umami savor of meat has been inactivatedin their DNA , stand for they likely do n’t have a rude appetite for fresh meat , Li said . Pandas also have a very slow metabolic process , which helps them to exist on their low - vigour diet of bamboo . In fact , pandas use just 38%of the daily energyof other land mammals of a like size .
Speakmanwas involvedin research that uncover a possible root of this inert metabolic pace : a cistron mutation that ’s unequaled to pandas and ascendance thyroid hormones , which are key in regulating metamorphosis .
" We all pretty much expected their metabolic rate would be humble because otherwise they would n’t be able-bodied to eat enough food to match their consumption . The with child insight was finding the gene that underlie that , " Speakman told Live Science in an e-mail . " Since then we built mouse with the same mutation and confirm those mouse also have lower metabolic rates . "
Meanwhile , Li leda studythat search how bamboo itself might even flirt a key function in helping pandas adapt to their strange dieting . When Li examined bloodline samples taken from panda bears , he place molecules called microRNAs , or miRNAs , circulating there . MiRNAsare molecules that occur in animals and plants , which prison cell use to control factor expression . These atom also come about in bamboo , from where they figure the panda ’s body through diet , and can conglomerate in its tissues over meter .
When Li and colleagues examined several of the miRNAs occur in panda blood , they ascertain that they targeted specific genes that are diversely involved in promote appetite , regulating sensation of aroma and stamp down acrimonious flavors , among other things . So it ’s possible that these bamboo - descend molecule have serve modernize and curate pandas ' appetite for the plant . This could be essential for their survival , " ensuring that sufficient bamboo can be devour every day to come across the energy intake requirement of the body , " Li explained .
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Elsewhere , studies have found that pandas ' bowel bacterium are n’t completely at betting odds with their vegan dieting . In fact , theirgut flora changesduring the time of year when bamboo shoots — a more nourishing part of the works than the leave — come out , allow giant panda to store more energy during this brief windowpane , during which metre they visiblygain free weight .
Ailuropoda melanoleuca have also evolve a " pseudo - thumb " that provide them to grapple bamboo stems tightly . Theirmolarsare broader than in other bear — essential for crushing hardy bamboo stems , as are panda ' uniquely sinewy jaw : " Their big rotund faces are because they have these monolithic jaw muscles that give them a bigger bite force than a polar bear , " Speakman said .
Pandas are adore , but evenly bemock as ill adapted , evolutionary all in - end . But while it might seem like they just loll around and eat bamboo all day , as Li put it , " the ' laziness ' of pandas is natural selection Wisdom of Solomon . "
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