Nature's Wild Redheads: Red Panda

Red pandas look like a rusty-colored raccoon, with black legs and white ears. Their red-and-white markings blend in with the red mosses and white fungus that grow on the trees in which they nest. Soft fur covers them from head to toe, even the soles of their feet. A bushy tail helps to keep their balance, and cover up with in winter.

The Red Pandas live in the bamboo forests of China, the Himalayas, and Myanmar. They share their turf with giant pandas. The red panda has adapted a thumb-like bony projection on their wrists, that helps them grip bamboo stalks. Ninety-five per cent of their diet is bamboo. Diet specialization is very unusual in mammals. We usually go for more variety.

Red panda's ancestry can be traced back millions of years. The first written records mentioning them was in 13^th century, Chinese scrolls. The Europeans didn't learn of their existence until six hundred years later. In 1821, Major General Thomas Hardwicke gave a presentation of the red panda to a group of his colleagues in London.

Major Hardwicke told the taxonomists, what the local Himalayans called his new discovery- "poonya." The English, as time passed, pronounced it as panda. The scientific name given to the red panda means 'fire-colored cat'. When the Giant Panda was discovered in 1869, the red panda became known as the 'lesser panda'.

Classified in both the raccoon and bear family, scientists now have placed the red panda in a group all to themselves. Though their diet is strictly plants, red pandas display behaviors more carnivore. Red panda's having large teeth, and leaving scent markings added to the confusion of their order switching. Conflicts among the science community happen due to poorly defined rules, constantly evolving information, and individual researchers drawing different conclusions from the same research.

Fossil records point towards the red panda being more closely related to the raccoon family. There is still disagreement in the science community about the panda's origin, even with DNA results. There are two sub-species of red pandas. The slightly larger version is found in China. There is evidence of an ancestor of the red panda who lived in North America, but is now extinct.

Adult red pandas spend most of their life alone, searching for and eating bamboo up to 13 hours a day. Bamboo is an ancient adaptation in this species. The bamboo, being a low calorie diet doesn't afford the red panda an abundance of energy. Males pandas still maintain within their home range more than one female to visit as he makes his nightly rounds.

Their reddish-orange fur, faintly marked with dark red-brown rings is much sought after in China. The fur hat the Chinese make from the red panda is much like the Daniel Boone coon-skin cap; complete with fuzzy tail. In the Yunnan Province, it is a desired wedding gift, said to be good luck for newlyweds to receive. The tails of this shy, docile creature are also sold as dusters.

Sources:

www.redpandaproject.org

www.animalinfo.org/species/carnivor/ailufulg.htm

www.zoo.org/factsheets/red_panda/redPanda.html