Bamboo diet

Despite being a member of the bear family, the giant panda eats bamboo, not meat, which makes it appear less aggressive and cuter to humans.

China is home to about half of the 1,600 bamboo species in the world, according to the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, an independent intergovernmental organization.

The giant panda sports a thumb-like sixth digit on each hand, and fossil and other evidence suggest that the modern animal's ancestors may have eaten bamboo at least 6 million years ago, according to a study by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences published in Scientific Reports in June.

Unlike other bears, the panda's sixth digit plays the role of an opposable thumb, which allows it to work with the other digits and hold bamboo efficiently, resulting in 99 percent of the animal's diet consisting of the plant.

However, on rare occasions, wild pandas will eat animal carcasses or other plants, according to the Shaanxi Forestry Bureau.

Bamboo is low in calories, and the panda retains the digestive system of carnivores, so it lacks the complex system found in herbivores and the bacteria they use to turn plants into nutrients. That means it is unable to absorb the maximum amount of nutrients from the large volume of bamboo it eats, according to the bureau.

As a result, pandas need to eat quickly to get sufficient nutrients from their diet, but they still spend about half their time eating and the other half sleeping.

In spring, an adult giant panda weighing 100 kilograms will spend 12 to 16 hours a day eating 10 to 18 kg of bamboo leaves and stalks, and it excretes more than 10 kg of feces every day, the bureau said. To save energy, the animal avoids excessive movement, walking at a gentle pace around a relatively small area.

Pandas bred in captivity usually have longer life spans than those in the wild as a result of better nutrition and disease control. They can live as long as 38 years, while those in the wild live an average of 12 to 14 years, but can live as long as 26 years.

"Developing a self-sustaining captive panda population aims to lay a solid foundation for the survival of artificially bred giant pandas in natural habitats and to rejuvenate small populations in the wild," said Duan Zhaogang, director of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda.