1. Giant Panda Placental Mammal
By: Wil Crowson

2. Classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia
Scientific Name: Ailuropoda melanoleuca
Common Name: Giant Panda

3. Common Characteristics
Giant Pandas show the evolutionary advantage of having hair and mammal glands. Mammals were the 1st animals on earth to show these traits.
Symmetry: Bilateral
Body cavity: Coelomate – all mammals have a full digestive system (tube within a tube)
Type of organism:
Free living
omnivore
terrestrial
Giant Pandas all show cephalization with three body regions (head, thorax, and abdomen)

4. Life Cycle/Reproduction
Average Lifespan (wild)
20 years average
Average lifespan (captivity)
Up to 35 years
small groups of pandas share a large territory and sometimes meet outside the breeding season. They are mostly solitary within group also
Breeding Interval
Females are capable of breeding annually. (usually only breed every other year though)
Breeding Season
spring
Number of Offspring 2
Gestation Period
95 to 160 days
Birth Mass
3 to 5 ounces
1/900th the size of its mother
Time to Weaning
8 to 9 months
Age at Sexual or Reproductive Maturity
4 to 8 years of age

5. Habitat/Niche Habitat Niche/Food Habits
Giant Pandas live in a few mountain ranges in central China: in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces
The Pandas live in broadleaf and coniferous forests with a dense under story of bamboo,
at elevations between 5,000 and 10,000 feet.
Torrential rains or dense mist throughout the year characterizes these forests, often shrouded in heavy clouds
Niche/Food Habits
A wild Giant Panda’s diet is almost exclusively (99%) bamboo.
May eat other grasses and occasional small rodents or musk deer fawns.

6. Interesting Physical Traits
Giant Pandas are about the size of a stick of butter when born
They are able to grasp bamboo stems with the help of a "pseudo thumb," formed by an elongated and enlarged wrist bone covered with a fleshy pad of skin

7. Status
The Giant Panda is listed as endangered. There are about 1,600 left in the wild.
Nearly 300 Pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world, mostly in China.
The WWF is currently working with the Chinese government:
to create reserves for the Pandas
making it easier for humans and Pandas to coexist

8. Interesting behavior
Giant Pandas are the only bears that do not hibernate during the winter.
When Pandas mark there territories they do a hand stand and whoever marks the highest wins.

9. References