Solitary Lifestyle

The giant panda is a solitary animal normally lives in solitude aside from mating season or females with young offspring.

• The giant panda is docile and naïve, rarely attacks without provocation, and generally holds itself aloof from the world, preferring seclusion. In the wild, the giant panda is terrestrial and defines its territory, usually about 10-30 hectares, with scent markings, spraying urine, and clawing trees.
• It typically keeps to a small territory with clean, running water supply and bamboo (the primary sources of food for the giant panda) growth, and takes shelter in hollow trees or out-of-way crevices.
• The giant panda does not hibernate during the winter, due to its low nutrient diet.
• Normally moving in slow motion and somewhat clumsy, but once threatens by natural enemies such as jackals, wolves or leopards, the giant panda can flee very quickly by climbing up a tree, all-the-way to the very top by grabbing the trunk tight with all four limbs.
• The giant panda is most active in the morning and at sunset. As it lives on bamboos that are low in nutrition, it tries its best to reduce energy consumption by spending about 10 hours a day sleeping, and uses the remaining hours foraging for food and feeding.

A depletion of bamboo makes the giant panda lean

Although the giant panda is carnivores, its primary food source (about 99%) is bamboo. Nevertheless, the giant panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and the similar dental formation and bone structure too, as well as the preference for a solitary lifestyle. Archeological records showed that about 1 million years ago, the giant pandas were once widely distributed in Huabei and Huanan provinces and in Burma and Nepal too. The animals did not migrate to their current habitats until later, possibly due to invasions of other carnivores and/or human beings. As there weren’t sufficient food supply where it was forced to live, the giant panda was compelled to adapt to the abundant bamboos grown natively as its main staple diet, and overtime evolved into an herbivore for the survival of this species.

• The adult giant panda eats as much as 13-20 kg of bamboos a day, spending 10-14 hours in the process. Because bamboos are tough fibrous plants hard to digest, 3/4 of the bamboos a giant panda consumes are excreted undigested, forcing the animal to feed constantly to maintain the nutrient its body needs; the precise reason why the giant panda does not hibernate in winter.
• The giant panda's stomach does not have the function to regurgitate, nor does it have any microorganisms that can digest fiber. It also doesn’t have a well-developed caecum (a part of the intestine). However, the giant panda does have ciliates as herbivores have in its digestive tract, although lesser in quantity, hence it could still process fibers the rest of the bear family cannot.
• The giant panda does not have a preference for one specification of bamboo over another. It would change the kind of bamboos it consumes and as well as its diet according to the season. For example, it likes bamboo shoots in the summer, and has a taste for budding young leaves in autumn, but favors bamboo roots in the remaining two seasons. The bamboo shoots rich in protein, fat, sugar, and multivitamins are its top choice however.
• The giant panda loves water as its main staple – the bamboo, is low in liquids. Usually needs to travel far and overcomes great difficulties to reach a water source, the giant panda would sometimes over-drink until its round belly couldn't hold another drop, and would act drunk while laying on its side panting. Some people refer to pandas in this condition as "water drunk".