Classified as endangered, there are fewer than 10, in the wild with the largest threats listed as poaching and loss of habitat. A red panda at Folly Farm being cute, that is all. Where do red pandas live? Red pandas live in the Eastern Himalayas and South-western China.
Can red pandas be adopted? How big are red pandas? While they're not domesticated and therefore are probably not suitable as pets, some people keep them as pets anyway - especially in Nepal and India - and upload their adorable hijinks to the internet for the world to see. Here are seven other facts about red pandas Ailurus fulgens that you might not already know. Red pandas aren't pandas. Despite their name, red pandas aren't actually closely related to giant pandas Ailuropoda melanoleuca , but it wasn't until the last ten or fifteen years that scientists settled upon just where red pandas fit on the evolutionary tree of life.
It was clear that red pandas were members of the taxonomic "infraorder" Arctoidea , placing them in a group with bears, pinnipeds seals, sea lions, and walrus , raccoons, and mustelids weasels, skunks, otters, and badgers.
Research published in in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution determined that they were not most closely related to bears or to raccoons as had been previously suggested.
Instead, red pandas form their own phylogenetic family, alongside skunks, raccoons, and mustelids. From a genetic perspective, they're more like the skunks and raccoons you might find in your own backyard than the giant pandas with whom they share habitats. Herbivorous carnivoran. As a member of the Order Carnivora , the red panda is a carnivoran. But unlike most carnivorans, it's not actually a carnivore. That is, the red panda is a mostly an herbivore.
It's actually one way in which the red panda is more like the giant panda than its genetic relatives: its diet consists almost entirely of bamboo leaves, plus bamboo shoots when in season, and the occasional fruit, flower, and rarely an odd egg or bird. The other carnivoran who is also primarily herbivorous? The binturong, the funny-looking bearcat that smells like popcorn. Sweet tooth. Speaking of diet, red pandas like fake sugar. In a study in The Journal of Heredity , researchers presented a variety of Carnivoran species with bowls of plain water, naturally sweetened water, or artificially sweetened water.
They discovered that red pandas preferred three artificial sugars: neotame, sucralose Splenda , and aspartame Nutrasweet or Equal. That makes them the only non-primate species known to be able to taste aspartame, an ability previously thought unique to Old World monkeys, apes, and humans.
Blending in. Take a look at the reddish-orange tint of the red panda's coat and you might not immediately think "good for camouflage," but that's where you'd be mistaken. It turns out that the red panda is pretty good at hiding from predators by disappearing into the branches of fir trees which are usually covered with reddish-brown moss.
Which is pretty handy because death by snow leopard seems like a particularly bad way to go. A Cheesy Problem. These pandas typically grow to the size of a house cat, though their big, bushy tails add an additional 18 inches.
The pandas use their ringed tails as wraparound blankets in the chilly mountain heights. The red panda shares the giant panda's rainy, high-altitude forest habitat, but has a wider range. Red pandas live in the mountains of Nepal and northern Myanmar Burma , as well as in central China.
These animals spend most of their lives in trees and even sleep aloft. When foraging, they are most active at night as well as in the gloaming hours of dusk and dawn. Red pandas have a taste for bamboo but, unlike their larger relatives, they eat many other foods as well—fruit, acorns, roots, and eggs.
Like giant pandas, they have an extended wrist bone that functions almost like a thumb and greatly aids their grip. They are shy and solitary except when mating. Females give birth in the spring and summer, typically to one to four young.
Young red pandas remain in their nests for about 90 days, during which time their mother cares for them. Males take little or no interest in their offspring. The red panda has given scientists taxonomic fits. It has been classified as a relative of the giant panda, and also of the raccoon, with which it shares a ringed tail. Currently, red pandas are considered members of their own unique family—the Ailuridae. Red pandas are an at-risk species, victims of deforestation. Their natural space is shrinking as more and more forests are destroyed by logging and the spread of agriculture.
All rights reserved. Common Name: Red Panda.
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