Giants Pandas


The giant panda or Ailuropoda melanoleuca ("black-and-white cat-foot") is one of the most wonderful and loving animals in the world. In Chinese, the giant panda is called the "large bear cat", or "cat bear" , a term usually used only in Taiwan. Most bears' eyes have round pupils. The exception is the giant panda, whose pupils are vertical slits, like cats' eyes. It is these unusual eyes that inspired the Chinese to call the panda the "giant bear cat".

Giant pandas live in a few mountain ranges in central China: Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. They once lived in lowland areas, but farming, forest clearing, and other development now restrict giant pandas to the mountains. Giant pandas live in broadleaf and coniferous forests with a dense understory of bamboo, at elevations between 5,000 and 10,000 feet.

Sadly, the Giant Pandas are listed as endangered in the World Conservation Union's (IUCN's) Red List of Threatened Animals. There are about 1,600 left in the wild. More than 160 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world, mostly in China.