This, along with their dire status as a species, makes them a powerful symbol for the conservation movement as a whole. Pandas have been ridiculed for their decidedly non-bearlike vegetarian diets, their apparent lack of interest in—and aptitude for—sex, their tendency to spend the majority of their time sitting, eating, scratching video , and defecating about 40 times per day —even for being, shall we say, plump.
How is it, they ask , that such a species could have "evolved" to be so poorly suited for survival and could have lasted these "alleged" tens of thousands of years without a little help from a higher power? Vegetarians One of the panda's curious adaptations is its remarkably inefficient diet. Like other bears, and like omnivores and carnivores, pandas have short digestive systems, making them ill suited for their preferred diet of fibrous, nutrient-poor bamboo.
To obtain sufficient nutrients, pandas must eat almost a fourth of their weight in bamboo every day. Pandas also favor young bamboo sprouts, which have even less nutrition; if they eat only these, they must chomp down almost half of their weight daily.
But according to Megan Owen, a conservation specialist at the San Diego Zoo, there is a possible evolutionary explanation for the panda's seemingly foolish preference for bamboo: lack of competition.
When pandas split off from the bear lineage about 3 million years ago, tasty and nutritious cuisine like meat, fruit, and nuts may have been difficult to obtain while bamboo was ubiquitous—a wide-open ecological niche. So there were two choices: Exert some serious effort to get the good stuff, or munch away on a seemingly inexhaustible supply of woody grasses. The panda accommodated its vegetarianism with a few physical adaptations—enlarged chewing muscles those adorable jowls , their famous " thumbs ," and a slightly modified digestive system though still far more similar to a carnivore's than to an herbivore's.
But the most notable adaptations were behavioral. Pandas must minimize energy expenditure in every aspect of their lives: limiting locomotion and mating periods, having a low surface area-to-volume ratio i. Energy conservation also explains their endearingly tiny and helpless young: According to Lisa Stevens of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, it is much more efficient to give birth to very small, undeveloped cubs and raise them externally on milk than to expend energy on their development internally.
If natural selection drives the formation of species, how did an animal that needs porn , Viagra , and sexercise to mate ever make it? Pandas, IDists believe, are up against some serious hurdles when it comes to having sex : The male penis is disproportionately small , females seldom go into heat, and males do not instinctively know how to mate, among other problems. Take, for example, Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, the cherished panda couple of the Smithsonian National Zoo, whose relationship had been shaky since ever they were introduced in Hsing-Hsing failed at his early attempts to inseminate Ling-Ling—not much of a surprise, considering he tried to mate with her ear, wrist, and foot.
With all these attributes in their arsenal, fully grown giant pandas can defend themselves against most predators. Pandas mainly use their strong jaws and teeth for eating bamboo, but they will bite if confronted. So why are pandas so endangered? The biggest threats to pandas are not their age-old enemies in the wild, but every day human actions. Predators might take the odd cub but humans are the greatest threat to pandas. In particular, pandas are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, and by people hunting other animals and harvesting plants in the forests.
That's the bad news. The good news is that humans are also the greatest hope for pandas because we can do something about it. No matter where you live, if we all treat our planet better, we can guarantee a brighter future for the giant pandas, the bamboo forests they depend on, and even for ourselves. What WWF is doing to save the panda. Virtual Gifts. It might have something to do with the fact that none are even remotely as cuddly as the panda bear.
And yet, for some reason, they have decided not to eat meat and consume only bamboo. In the meanwhile, you know what else lives in their habitat? Toads, newts, and frogs; many, many birds far smaller than a bear; field mice, shrews, squirrels, voles, hares, moles, weasels, monkeys, and civets; and snakes, turtles, and fish. This is not the Hunger Games. I can think of maybe one or two animals like that yes, cats and dogs , but both are that way specifically because we domesticated them. I get that animal conservation is not a zero-sum game in theory.
But sadly, it is a zero-sum game in practice, because we only have so many resources to fund animal conservation. Given that reality, I think pandas should get to the back of the line, far behind the yellow-faced bees, the mangrove-dwelling crabs, the snake-river salmon, the sea otter, the gopher tortoise, the tiger shark, the prairie dog, the ivory tree coral, and so many more.
I think my colleague Olivia is right to draw the connection between pandas and the UK royal family. Both serve as propaganda designed to uphold an ideal of their respective governments, and both end up costing the taxpayers in those countries a fortune.
That said, compared to royals, pandas are a relative bargain. Three years of Harry and Meghan, or decades of pandas? By providing your email, you agree to the Quartz Privacy Policy. Skip to navigation Skip to content. Discover Membership. Editions Quartz. More from Quartz About Quartz. Follow Quartz. These are some of our most ambitious editorial projects.
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