Living the high life:With their bushy tail for balance—which can be as long as their body—and claws for gripping, red pandas are definitely acrobatic tree dwellers. Most of their time is spent in trees, and the red panda’s cinnamon red coat, occasionally saddled with orange or yellow, and soft cream-colored face mask give greatcamouflageamong the red moss and white lichen that cover the tree trunks of their bamboo forest homes. Below each eye is a band of color that varies from tan to red to black. The legs and belly shade to black in striking contrast to the red body, and the tail is fully furred and more-or-less banded, with rings on some individuals being more pronounced than on others.
Trees are also used as a perch for sunbathing high in the forestcanopyand give red pandas an escape route from predators such as snow leopards and dholes. To descend, red pandas climb down headfirst, gripping the trunk with the hind claws.
Red pandas live mostly in cool, temperate forests with a shrubbyunderstorydominated by thick bamboo. They prefer habitats with plenty of fallen logs, tree stumps, and fresh water. In part of India, red pandas live in a tropical forest.
Don't look for any red panda activity during the day: they usually move around at dawn and dusk, sleeping during the hottest part of the day. They begin their “day” by licking the front paws and then cleaning the fur all over the body in a cat-like, sitting posture in the tree. Red pandas "wash" their face with fore and hind paws. You might see one at the Zoo stretched out on a tree branch or even rolled up in a tree hollow with its long tail covering the face. When night falls, red pandas run quickly through the trees to forage for food. Males patrol their territory and scent mark it with urine as well as a secretion from the anal gland during this time.
Claws are for climbing, of course, but this mild-mannered mammal can defend its territory by standing on its hind legs and using those sharp claws to strike out if threatened. If that doesn't work at keeping enemies at bay, the red panda can release a strong odor from scent glands at the base of the tail that may make apredatorthink twice about a red-panda meal.
Red pandas have powerful molars for chewing on tough bamboo and are mostly vegetarians—although they are classified as carnivores.Bamboo is not a great food source for energy and is hard to digest. In fact, red pandas digest only about 24 percent of the bamboo they eat. Red pandas need to eat 20 to 30 percent of their body weight each day—about 2 to 4 pounds (1 to 2 kilograms) of bamboo shoots and leaves.In one study, female red pandas were found to eatapproximately 20,000 bamboo leaves in a single day.
If 90 percent of your diet is made up of bamboo leaves, it could seem like you lost a bet. But bamboo is a pretty practical food source, as it grows rapidly on mountainsides, and few otherspeciesare going to fight you for this low-calorie resource. Red pandas eat mostly bamboo leaves and shoots, acorns, and flowers. Bamboo stalks are eaten in the spring and fruit is enjoyed in the summer. They may also eat eggs, small birds, and small rodents.
A red panda’s habitat may include up to 40 kinds of bamboo, but it selects only one or two of the most nutritious species to eat. While giant pandas bite off large chunks of bamboo stems and leaves in one bite, red pandas daintily nibble one well-chosen leaf at a time. Large, strong chewing muscles and flattened teeth are adapted for chewing bamboo.
Eating a specialized diet like bamboo happens to be very unusual among mammals. In fact, only a few depend mostly on bamboo for their food: red pandas, giant pandas, bamboo lemurs from Madagascar, and bamboo rats from China and Southeast Asia. Red pandas might spend about half of their waking hours foraging for bamboo.
Like raccoons, red pandas dip their paws into water when needing a drink. Like giant pandas, red pandas have a wrist bone that works like a “false thumb” to help grasp bamboo shoots. At the San Diego Zoo, the red pandas are fed leaf eater biscuits, dry dog food, grapes, apples, yams, and, of course, bamboo.
