While the Giant Panda is a member of the bear family, a few habits separate the species from other bears. The panda bear's diet is pretty boring. Other bears eat almost anything. But most of the time, 90% in fact, the panda eats only bamboo.
It wasn't until 1869 that Westerners got their first look at the giant panda. Père Armand David, a Catholic priest, had the first peek and likened the strange animal to a bear and so used the Latin word for bear, ursus, in its name. This instinct is understandable -- after all, the giant panda looks a lot like a bear.
Raccoons didn't earn the name trash pandas for no reason. The name stuck to them due to their uncanny resemblance to these friendly chubby mammals from Asia.
Raccoons and bears belong to the same clade of carnivorous mammals, but they are not 'small bears'! Their physique is similar to that of a bear and they are both predators, but the similarity is only due to their adaptation to a comparable way of life.
Raccoons and Bears Share a Common Ancestor
Along with dogs and cats, raccoons are part of the order Carnivora. However, an evolutionary tree shows that they are most closely related to bears, sharing a more recent common ancestor with these burly beasts than with either of our domesticated friends.
Giant pandas (often referred to as simply “pandas”) are black and white bears. In the wild, they are found in thick bamboo forests, high up in the mountains of central China – you can check out our cool facts about China, here! 2. These magnificent mammals are omnivores.
Native to central China, giant pandas have come to symbolize vulnerable species. As few as 1,864 giant pandas live in their native habitat, while another 600 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world.
Classification. For many decades, the precise taxonomic classification of the giant panda was under debate because it shares characteristics with both bears and raccoons. However, molecular studies indicate the giant panda is a true bear, part of the family Ursidae.
Koalas are often referred to as 'koala bears', but this is a misnomer of the past as they are more closely related to kangaroos, bandicoots and possums than to true bears.
1. Are koalas bears? Despite the widespread colloquial use of "koala bears", koalas are not actually bears—they are marsupials. European settlers that arrived in Australia inaccurately called koalas 'bears' because of their resemblance to bears.
The giant Panda is a true member of the bear family. They are best known for their starkly black and white fur coats. Their typical “homes” are found in temperate forests habitats in the mountains of southwest China.
Giant Pandas eat bamboo. Other bears eat insects and small mammals. Giant Pandas have slit-like pupils, other bears have round pupils. Giant Pandas don't hibernate.
While pandas are regarded as cuddly, quiet animals, they certainly have a dangerous side when they feel threatened. They're solitary creatures and like to avoid confrontation, the World Wildlife Fund reports, but have sharp claws and teeth and may attack to protect themselves or their cubs if provoked.
Giant pandas are docile overall and often lower their heads or shade their faces with their front paws in an attempt to conceal themselves when they come across a human for the first time. They seldom attack people or other animals, choosing to try and evade conflict first.
China is the only natural habitat of the giant pandas; and Beijing has used the animals since the 1950s as part of its "panda diplomacy" programme. China has "gifted" and "loaned" pandas to other countries, and also taken them back when relations soured! Beijing gifted its first panda, Ping Ping, to the USSR in 1957.
DID YOU KNOW? Male pandas are called boars, and females sows, just like pigs. In China, giant pandas are also known as 'white bear', 'bamboo bear' and 'large bear cat'.
Raccoons are often referred to as trash pandas and trash bandits thanks to their scavenging ways, but both those nicknames are also a nod to the black "mask" that covers their eyes.
Procyonidae (/proʊsiːjɔːnɪdiː/) is a New World family of the order Carnivora. It comprises the raccoons, ringtails, cacomistles, coatis, kinkajous, olingos, and olinguitos. Procyonids inhabit a wide range of environments and are generally omnivorous.
All three species belong to order carnivore, but they are in different families. The raccoon dog is more closely related to dogs than raccoons while the red panda and the raccoon are distant cousins as they both belong to the superfamily of weasels.
Pandas are built very similarly to all other bear species but have an entirely herbivorous diet; despite their carnivorous ancestry. Their bamboo-centric diet led to what is called a pseudo-thumb. They have an enlarged wrist bone (sesamoid) relative to all other bears.
Bears are mammals that belong to the family Ursidae. They can be as small as four feet long and about 60 pounds (the sun bear) to as big as eight feet long and more than a thousand pounds (the polar bear).
A newborn panda cub weighs just 90-130 g. A cub is just 1/900th the size of its mother - one of the smallest newborn mammals relative to its mother's size. Pandas are dependent on their mothers for the first few months of their lives and are fully weaned at 8 to 9 months.