The animal for my report is a panda. The panda’s class is Mammalia. Its order is carnivores. The giant pandas family is Ursidae, and its genus is pandlus. The giant panda species is Ailuropoda melanoleuca.  The place where the giant panda is usually found is the bamboo forests. You can mostly find is in China. The panda is so endangered that they are one of the rarest animals in the world. In China you will find pandas in mountain ranges in central China. There are only about 239 pandas left in China and only 1,590 to about 1,600 left in the wild. They usually live alone, not in groups like you might see at a zoo.  Pandas mostly eat bamboo, honey, eggs, fish and yams. The word panda, derived from the Nepalese word ponya, which means bamboo and plant eating animals in Nepal. The giant panda is a favorite of the human public. The panda has the longest tail in the bear family after the sloth. Panda bears usually live 20 to 30 years in captivity. The longest the tail grows is 4 to 6 inches. Unlike most bears the panda does not hibernate. The panda bear has its ears, eyes, body, tail and paws all black. Its head and legs are both white. Panda’s has a very puffy tail. The panda has a very powerful jaw muscle. Adult panda bears are 4 to 6 feet long. On panda hands they have opposable thumbs. New born babies are tiny and helpless. They weight 165 to 250 lbs. or more. Female pandas are able to breed for only 1 to 3 days in the spring. The giant panda is easily recognized in the wild. Pandas are much smaller than red pandas but related to bears or raccoons.

Bibliography: “Panda” © 2011 Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.