Animal
Giant panda
The giant panda is a black-and-white bear from China. It eats bamboo almost all day long.
The giant panda is a black-and-white bear that lives in misty mountain forests in China. About 99 percent of its food is bamboo, and it spends up to 16 hours a day eating. Pandas were once endangered, but protecting their forests has helped them, and they are now listed as Vulnerable.
Ailuropoda melanoleuca is a bear that lives almost entirely on bamboo in a few mountain ranges of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, China. A carnivore's gut, slow breeding and fragmented habitat make it vulnerable, but a network of reserves helped its numbers rise, and the IUCN moved it from Endangered to Vulnerable in 2016.
Photo: Jeff Kubina, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Meet the giant panda
The giant panda is a bear with black and white fur.
It has black ears, black patches around its eyes and black legs. It lives in the mountains of China. It loves to eat bamboo.
The giant panda is a real bear, about the same size as an American black bear. It stands 60 to 90 centimeters tall at the shoulder and is 1.2 to 1.8 meters long.
Its fur is easy to recognize: black ears, eye patches, legs and shoulders, and white everywhere else. Nobody knows for sure why pandas are black and white. Scientists have several ideas, such as camouflage in snowy bamboo forests or helping pandas spot each other from far away.
Ailuropoda melanoleuca is a member of the bear family with a typical bear's build, gait and climbing ability, social system and reproductive biology, but an extraordinary diet. Adults are 1.2 to 1.8 meters long and 60 to 90 centimeters at the shoulder; wild males reach about 113 kilograms, and females rarely 104.
The function of the bold coat remains unresolved. Proposed explanations include camouflage in dense bamboo and on snowy rock, and signaling that helps solitary pandas recognize and avoid one another. None is conclusive, and the camouflage idea is complicated by the fact that adult pandas have few natural predators.
Quick facts
- Group
- Mammal
- Length
- 1.2 to 1.8 m
- Height
- 0.6 to 0.9 m
- Weight
- up to 113 kg
- Lifespan in the wild
- 15 to 20 years
Where it lives
Giant pandas live only in China.
They live high in the mountains, where it is cool and misty. Lots of bamboo grows there under the tall trees.
Wild giant pandas live in only one country: China. They are found in a few mountain ranges in the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, high up at about 1,500 to 3,000 meters, where rain and mist fill the forests for much of the year.
Pandas need forests with lots of bamboo growing underneath the trees. Old forests are important too, because big hollow logs and tree stumps make safe dens for raising cubs. Long ago pandas also lived in lowlands, but farms and towns have pushed them up into the mountains.
The IUCN Red List (2016) records the giant panda as extant only in Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan, China, and extinct in Hubei and Hunan. It occupies broadleaf and coniferous forests with a dense bamboo understory at roughly 1,500 to 3,000 meters, under frequent heavy rain and mist.
Agriculture, forest clearing and development have confined the species to these mountains and split its habitat into isolated patches. Old-growth forest matters because it provides hollow logs and stumps large enough for maternity dens and shelters the bamboo itself. Because the map shades whole countries, it colors all of China; pandas live only in a small part of the country's center.
Continent
Its habitats
Where can you find this animal?
- Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
Only a few mountain ranges in central China, in the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, at about 1,500 to 3,000 meters. The map colors all of China, but pandas live in only a small part of it.
Places: China.
Source: iucn-red-list · checked October 2026
Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Counts of GBIF records of wild observations (human and machine) and preserved specimens. Records include introduced populations, vagrants, escaped or released animals and misidentifications, so a country with records is not necessarily part of the native range.
Wild sightings have been recorded in China, Germany, Spain and Japan.
Source: gbif · checked October 2026
Range maps show where scientists say an animal lives, often country by country. An animal may live in only part of a country shown, and sightings records can include animals that wandered far from home.
A bamboo diet
Pandas eat bamboo, bamboo and more bamboo!
They sit up and hold the bamboo in their paws. They eat for most of the day. Then they take a nap.
About 99 percent of a giant panda's food is bamboo. Now and then pandas eat grasses, bulbs, fruit, insects or even small animals, but bamboo is almost everything.
Here is the puzzle: a panda's stomach and gut are built more like a meat-eater's than a plant-eater's, so it cannot get much goodness out of tough bamboo. To make up for it, a panda eats 32 to 45 kilograms of bamboo every day, as heavy as a big dog, and spends 10 to 16 hours a day eating.
Bamboo makes up about 99 percent of the diet, supplemented occasionally by grasses, bulbs, fruit, insects, rodents and carrion. Yet the panda's digestive tract remains similar to a carnivore's, without the specialized plant-fermenting gut of herbivores, so much of what it eats passes through undigested.
It compensates with volume and time: about 32 to 45 kilograms (70 to 100 pounds) of bamboo a day, gathered and eaten over 10 to 16 hours, with naps of two to four hours between feeding bouts. Large molars and powerful jaw muscles crush the fibrous stems. Most of the rest of its time is spent sleeping and resting.
Built for bamboo
A panda has a special bump on its wrist.
It works like a thumb to hold bamboo. Its big, strong teeth crunch the hard stems. Thick fur keeps it warm.
Watch a panda eat and you will see it sit up, a bit like you sitting on the floor, with bamboo held in its front paws. It grips the stems with its five fingers and a 'pseudo-thumb', a long wrist bone covered with a fleshy pad that works like an extra thumb.
Pandas have big, flat back teeth called molars and strong jaw muscles, which let them crush tough bamboo. Their thick, woolly coat keeps them warm in cold, wet mountain forests.
The best-known adaptation is the 'pseudo-thumb', an elongated, enlarged wrist bone covered by a fleshy pad, which opposes the five digits to grip bamboo stems while the panda feeds sitting upright.
The skull carries large molars and powerful jaw muscles for crushing fibrous culms. The dense, woolly coat insulates against the cold, damp montane forest. The panda's visual signaling is limited, with a round, inexpressive face, a stub of a tail and ears that cannot flatten or cock, which the Smithsonian links to its solitary life in dense, misty bamboo where sight lines are short.
Growing up
A baby panda is very, very tiny.
It is pink and has no fur yet. Its mother holds it close. The cub grows black and white fur and stays with her for a long time.
A newborn giant panda is pink, blind and only about 85 to 140 grams, about the size of a stick of butter. That is about 1/900 of its mother's weight, one of the smallest babies of any mammal compared with its mother.
Cubs open their eyes at 6 to 8 weeks and start moving around at about 3 months. They drink milk for 8 to 9 months and stay with their mother for one and a half to three years. Because of this, a mother panda can raise a cub only every other year at best.
Females ovulate once a year in spring and can conceive during only two or three days. Birth follows 90 to 180 days after mating; twins occur, but usually only one cub survives. Newborns weigh about 85 to 140 grams, roughly 1/900 of the mother's mass, the smallest newborn relative to its mother of any mammal apart from marsupials.
Eyes open at 6 to 8 weeks, cubs become mobile at about 3 months, nurse for 8 to 9 months and are nutritionally weaned at a year, but stay with the mother for 1.5 to 3 years. Pandas mature at 4 to 7 years and may breed into their 20s, raising perhaps five to eight cubs in a lifetime.
Messages and naps
Pandas mostly live alone.
They leave smelly messages on trees for other pandas. Some pandas even do a handstand to put their smell up high! Pandas can climb trees too.
Adult pandas mostly live alone, but they keep in touch by smell. They rub scent onto trees, rocks and the ground along their paths. Other pandas can tell who has passed by and how long ago, like reading a message board. Male pandas sometimes do a handstand to leave their scent higher up a tree.
Pandas also make sounds, including a goat-like bleat. They are good climbers, and young cubs often nap high in trees while their mother feeds. When they are not eating, pandas mostly sleep.
Although largely solitary, giant pandas maintain contact through scent marks, calls and occasional meetings, and research suggests local communities of 7 to 15 individuals share a group territory in which males' home ranges overlap almost completely and females' much less. Scent from anal glands is rubbed onto trees, rocks and the ground along regular routes; males may adopt a handstand to place marks higher.
Marks can separate pandas outside the breeding season and draw them together during it, when females advertise readiness and prefer males whose scent is familiar. Vocal repertoire includes the bleat. Pandas climb well; unattended cubs shelter high in trees, which protects them from predators of young pandas such as the golden cat, yellow-throated marten and dhole.
Did you know?
A panda can eat for 16 hours in one day.
A giant panda may spend 10 to 16 hours a day eating, munching through 32 to 45 kilograms of bamboo.
Daily intake of roughly 32 to 45 kilograms of bamboo over 10 to 16 hours compensates for very low digestive efficiency.
A conservation success story
There were very few pandas left.
People in China made safe forests just for pandas. Now there are more pandas than before. They still need our help.
The biggest danger to pandas has been losing their bamboo forests to farming and logging, which left small groups cut off from each other. Small, separated groups have trouble finding mates and recovering.
China has created more than 60 panda reserves and protected the remaining forests in the panda's range. Scientists around the world study how pandas breed and raise cubs. Thanks to this work, panda numbers have grown. In 2016 the IUCN changed their listing from Endangered to Vulnerable, but there may be fewer than 2,000 in the wild.
Habitat destruction for agriculture and timber fragmented the panda's once-continuous range into isolated groups, which are vulnerable to drought, inbreeding and disease and cannot rebound quickly given the species' slow reproduction. The Smithsonian cites a wild population of as few as 1,864, with about 600 more in zoos and breeding centers.
China's response includes more than 60 giant panda reserves and the 1998 Natural Forest Conservation Program protecting remaining forest across the range. Rising numbers led the IUCN to downlist the species from Endangered to Vulnerable in 2016 (criteria C2a(i); D1), with an increasing trend. Connecting habitat fragments and research into reproduction and reintroduction remain priorities.
IUCN Red List
How is the giant panda doing in the wild?
- Least Concern
- Near Threatened
- Vulnerable (this animal)
- Endangered
- Critically Endangered
- Extinct in the Wild
- Extinct
Vulnerable
At high risk of disappearing from the wild.
See the IUCN Red List assessment · The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022.2
Amazing facts
-
A newborn panda is about the size of a stick of butter.
A newborn panda weighs only about 85 to 140 grams, about 1/900 of its mother's weight.
Apart from marsupials, the giant panda has the smallest newborn relative to its mother's size of any mammal, about 1/900 of her mass.
-
Some pandas do handstands to leave smelly messages.
Male pandas sometimes do a handstand against a tree so their scent mark ends up higher.
Males may scent-mark in a handstand posture, placing the mark higher on the trunk, where other pandas read it like a bulletin board.
-
A panda can eat for 16 hours in one day.
A giant panda may spend 10 to 16 hours a day eating, munching through 32 to 45 kilograms of bamboo.
Daily intake of roughly 32 to 45 kilograms of bamboo over 10 to 16 hours compensates for very low digestive efficiency.
-
Pandas hold bamboo with a special wrist bump.
A panda's 'pseudo-thumb' is really a long wrist bone covered with a fleshy pad, and it helps the panda grip bamboo.
The pseudo-thumb is an elongated, enlarged wrist bone under a fleshy pad that works against the five digits as the panda feeds.
Words to know
- bamboo
- a tall, fast-growing grass with hard, woody stems
- pseudo-thumb
- a panda's wrist bone and pad that works like an extra thumb
- molar
- a wide, flat back tooth for grinding food
- reserve
- an area of land set aside to protect animals and plants
- scent mark
- a smell an animal leaves on purpose as a message to others
- vulnerable
- at high risk of becoming endangered
Discovery challenge
-
What does a giant panda eat most?
About how much of a giant panda's diet is bamboo?
Why must a giant panda eat so much bamboo?
- Bamboo
- Fish
- Honey
Show the answer
Bamboo
Pandas eat bamboo almost all the time.
About 99 percent of what they eat is bamboo.
Its carnivore-like gut digests bamboo poorly, so it needs 32 to 45 kilograms a day.
-
Where do wild pandas live?
In which country do wild giant pandas live?
Which describes the giant panda's present range?
- China
- Brazil
- Canada
Show the answer
China
Wild pandas live only in China.
They live in a few mountain ranges in central China.
Isolated mountain populations in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, at about 1,500 to 3,000 meters.
-
What helps a panda hold bamboo?
What is a panda's 'pseudo-thumb'?
What structure forms the pseudo-thumb?
- A special wrist bone
- Its tail
- Its ears
Show the answer
A special wrist bone
A bump on its wrist works like a thumb.
It is a long wrist bone covered with a fleshy pad that works like an extra thumb.
An elongated, enlarged wrist bone with a fleshy pad, opposing the five digits.
-
Are there more pandas now than before?
What happened to the giant panda's listing in 2016?
What drove the panda's 2016 downlisting?
- Yes, numbers have grown
- No, there are none left
- Pandas never needed help
Show the answer
Yes, numbers have grown
Yes! Safe forests helped pandas.
It moved from Endangered to Vulnerable because numbers grew.
An increasing population after decades of reserve creation and forest protection.
Places where you might see it
Experiments to try
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Explain why the giant panda is a bear that eats almost only bamboo, and how its body copes.
- Describe the panda's mountain forest habitat and why it is fragmented.
- Describe the panda life cycle and why pandas breed slowly.
- Explain how reserves and forest protection helped the panda recover.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might an animal that eats only one food be at more risk than one that eats many?
- Scientists still don't know why pandas are black and white. Which idea do you think is best, and why?
- How do you think connecting small patches of forest could help pandas?
Try at home or in class
- Try picking up a pencil using only your fingers with your thumb tucked in, then with a small rolled-up sock taped to your wrist as a 'pseudo-thumb'.
- Weigh out 1 kilogram of something at home and imagine a panda eating 32 to 45 of those every day.
Key vocabulary: bamboo, pseudo-thumb, molar, reserve, scent mark, vulnerable
Where these facts come from
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN terms of use (no redistribution of Red List data or range maps))
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF Occurrence Search , Global Biodiversity Information Facility (CC0 1.0 (backbone); occurrence counts are facts derived from records under CC0, CC BY and CC BY-NC)
- Giant panda , Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute
- Giant panda , San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
- Ailuropoda melanoleuca (Giant Panda), 2016 assessment , IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file: Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA only (credited on each page))
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 24, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.