1. Giant Panda Bears Written and Illustrated By: Micah King 2 nd Grade 2012

2. Giant Panda Bears Written and Illustrated By: Micah King 2 nd Grade Thompson Publishing Company Inc., Copyright 2012

3. Dedicated to: My Mom & Dad, My Two Sisters, My Brother, & My Grandparents

4. Table of Contents 1 Giant Panda Bear Facts 2 – 3 Giant Panda Bears Diet 4 – 5 Giant Panda Bears Habitat 6 Giant Panda Bears Life Cycle 7 Giant Panda Bears Diagrams 8 – 9 Glossary 10 References 11 Giant Panda Bear Photos 12

5. Giant Panda Bear Facts The giant panda bear is one of the world’s rarest mammals. They can weigh 165-300 lbs. Baby pandas weigh 3-4 oz. Only about 1,000 of these bears survive in the wild. Pandas are shy and will not go into areas where people live. There are only about 1,000 giant pandas left out in the wild. 2

6. Giant Panda Bear Facts (continued) The panda bear is classified as an endangered species. There are also about 127 pandas in zoos in China, U.S., Mexico, Japan, Germany, and North Korea. Panda bears have molar teeth that are very broad and flat. These molars help the pandas to crush their food. 3

7. Giant Panda Bears Diet Giant panda bears eat mostly bamboo shoots and leaves. Sometimes they eat other vegetables, fish, or small animals. Bamboo is about 99% of their diets. Giant panda bears eat fast. They eat a lot. Giant panda bears spend about 12 hours each day eating. They digest only about one-fifth of the food that they eat. Bamboo is very nutritious. 4

8. Giant Panda Bears Diet (continued) Giant panda bears hold the stems with their front paws. They have large wrist bones that act as thumbs for gripping the stems. A panda must have at least two bamboo species where it lives or it will starve. 5

9. Giant Panda Bears Habitat Giant panda bears live in the wild, dense, bamboo forests in the misty, rainy mountains of Southwestern China. Pandas are very shy and this keeps them from traveling from one mountain to another to search for food. Sometimes pandas starve because all of the bamboo in their area dies off. Pandas live alone most of the time. 6

10. Giant Panda Bear Life Cycle Female giant pandas have babies after the age of six. Female pandas give birth to one or two cubs every two years. The mother panda feeds the cubs for about four months. By the age of six months the baby panda begins to nibble on bamboo by itself. Panda cubs stay with their mothers up to 18 months. Giant panda bears can live up to 30 years in captivity. 7

11. Giant Panda Bear Diagram I 8

12. Giant Panda Bear Diagram II 9

13. Glossary 10 bamboo – mostly tall tropical grasses including some with hollow stems used for building furniture captivity – kept with bounds or held under control cubs – a young individual of some animals as a fox, bear, or lion dense – marked by compactness or crowding together of parts endangered – threatened with extinction mammals – any of the group of vertebrate animals that includes man and others which nourish their young with milk molars – one of the broad teeth located in the back of the mouth adapted for grinding food

14. References 11 Websites http:/animals.about.com/od/bears/a/bear-facts.htm http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature http://www.enchanted.com www.googlewww.google images.com http://www.kidzone.ws/lw/bears/facts.html Books The Giant Pandas, John Bonnett Wexo The Giant Pandas of China, Jane Duden

15. Giant Panda Bear Photos 12