Posts tagged "panda"
Baby pandas are sweet, and sleepy pandas are adorable. But a video of a group of roly, poly pandas trying to go the wrong way on a slide? It's almost more cuteness than we know how to deal with. Can you handle it?
Pop-quiz time. What's the cutest animal? That's right, the giant panda. And what's the cutest thing a giant panda can be caught doing? No, I'm sorry; "sneezing" is only the second cutest thing. The correct answer: The cutest thing a giant panda can be caught doing is falling (literally!) asleep on its feet.
Tai Shan, the four-year-old panda in Washington's National Zoo, did just that last week. He tried fighting against the Sandman's spell, determined to stay upright, but eventually his drowsiness won out -- until his own forward momentum propelled him into a hilarious nap time somersault. Luckily for all of us, a zoogoer managed to capture Tai Shan's adorable clumsiness on camera, and shared her photos with the (UK) Daily Mail.
Tai Shan, the four-year-old panda in Washington's National Zoo, did just that last week. He tried fighting against the Sandman's spell, determined to stay upright, but eventually his drowsiness won out -- until his own forward momentum propelled him into a hilarious nap time somersault. Luckily for all of us, a zoogoer managed to capture Tai Shan's adorable clumsiness on camera, and shared her photos with the (UK) Daily Mail.
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Giant pandas are found only in China and already among the most endangered species on the planet. But brown giant pandas, which have brown fur instead of the normal black, are far more rare. This is only the fifth brown giant panda ever recorded, reports PeoplePets.
The panda cub, which is just two months old and has yet to open its eyes or walk, was found in the Foping Giant Panda Reserve in Shaanxi Province, which, according to China Daily, is the same place the first giant brown panda was discovered back in 1985.
This new cub's mother is black and white, like most giant pandas. And the first giant brown panda, Dandan, gave birth to three black and white pandas (all of whom died at a young age, sadly). Experts still don't understand why some pandas are born with the more unusual brown markings. Maybe this fuzzy new addition will help shed more light on the subject!
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Who wouldn't want to save this guy? Photo: popofatticus/Flickr
Now the giant panda has become the center of a debate incited by BBC wildlife broadcaster Chris Packham. Packham is known for his nature photography and natural history books and is the host of the BBC wildlife program "Springwatch." It's his job to educate the public about nature and the environment, so it was surprising when the broadcaster didn't mince words when discussing pandas in a recent radio interview, reports the London Times.
"Here is a species that, of its own accord, has gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac. It's not a strong species...I reckon we should pull the plug. Let them go, with a degree of dignity," Packham said on air, according to the Times.
That's just batty, says Colby Loucks, the deputy director of the conservation science program at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). True, saving pandas presents a unique challenge, since the bears focus 99 percent of their diet on bamboo. "But I don't think [pandas] went down that 'evolutionary cul-de-sac' of their own accord," Loucks told Paw Nation.
Historically, Loucks explained, bamboo forests covered a much larger area in Asia than they do today. "Humans co-opted almost all of that area for themselves," he said. After humans cut down huge amounts of bamboo forests, the pandas were left stranded in a relatively small pocket of bamboo forests in China. But that's our fault, not theirs."
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