How much can a panda eat in a day?

The panda's diet is very special and includes almost all kinds of bamboo that can be found in high mountain areas. Giant pandas also occasionally eat meat (usually animal carcasses and sometimes bamboo rats). The giant panda's unique food characteristics make it known as the "bamboo bear" by the locals. Bamboo is nutrient-poor and can only provide the basic nutrients needed for survival. Giant pandas have gradually evolved to adapt to this diet. In the wild, apart from sleeping or moving short distances, giant pandas spend up to 14 hours a day feeding. A giant panda eats 12 to 38 kilograms of food every day, which is close to 40% of its body weight. Giant pandas like to eat the most nutritious and least fiber-containing parts of bamboo, namely the young stems, buds, and bamboo shoots. Giant panda habitats usually have at least two species of bamboo. When one type of bamboo blooms and dies (bamboo blooms and dies periodically every 30 to 120 years), giant pandas can turn to other bamboos. However, continued habitat fragmentation increases the likelihood that there will be only one type of bamboo in the habitat, and when that bamboo dies, giant pandas in the area will face the threat of starvation.

The national treasure giant panda is a carnivore, but more than 90% of its nutrition comes from bamboo. How can giant pandas digest high-fiber bamboo? This has always been a mystery. Recently, news came out from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding: After five years of hard work, scientific and technical personnel discovered ciliates in the stomach of giant pandas for the first time. This discovery will have a profound impact on research on the digestive physiology of giant pandas.

The giant panda, a carnivore, has a typical digestive tract of a carnivore: a short intestine, no complex stomach, and a lack of a well-developed cecum. Therefore, how giant pandas digest bamboo is a mystery that countless people want to solve. Over the past five years, researcher Fei Lisong of Chengdu Zoo and Professor Yang Guangyou of Sichuan Agricultural University have worked closely together and finally discovered the presence of a large number of ciliates in the stomachs of giant pandas.

According to reports, ciliates are generally found in the digestive tract of herbivores, and their total biomass accounts for about 50% of the total microorganisms in the entire digestive tract. They play an important role in the digestion and utilization of plant foods. important role.

The carnivorous giant panda has changed its food habits during its long-term evolution process, mainly to adapt to the living environment. Changes in animal feeding habits and nutrition often first affect the organs related to food digestion and absorption, and eventually affect the entire body of the animal. It is estimated that some changes have occurred in the digestive physiology of giant pandas, but what changes have occurred is a subject that requires in-depth study.