97 Fun Facts About Pandas

A giant panda skull was found in the tomb of Empress Dowager Bo, who died in 155 BC during which Chinese dynasty?

Han: Bo was the mother of Emperor Wen, and in 2023 archaeologists reported a complete panda skeleton in a pit beside Wen's own tomb, laid with its head pointing toward the grave.

The Qinling panda, a subspecies with rare brown-and-white animals, lives only in which Chinese province, home of the Terracotta Army?

Shaanxi: the subspecies is confined to the Qinling Mountains there, and despite its fame for brown coats most Qinling pandas are ordinary black and white; only a handful of brown ones have been found.

What are the two main colors of a giant panda's fur?

Giant pandas are famous for their distinctive black and white fur. They have black patches around their eyes, ears, shoulders, and legs, with the rest of their body covered in white fur.

A giant panda is the logo of which international conservation organization?

WWF (World Wildlife Fund) has used the panda since its founding in 1961: naturalist Sir Peter Scott drew the first logo from sketches by Gerald Watterson.

Bamboo, which makes up nearly all of a wild giant panda's diet, belongs to which group of plants?

Grasses: bamboo is a woody giant of the grass family that stays green all year, and pandas eat its leaves, stems and shoots.

To which conservation status did the IUCN downlist the giant panda in 2016?

Vulnerable: in September 2016 the IUCN moved the giant panda from Endangered to Vulnerable after national surveys showed the wild population growing; China matched the downlisting in July 2021.

Which scientific name, whose second word means 'black and white', belongs to the giant panda?

Ailuropoda melanoleuca ends in a word built from the Greek for black and white; the label fits less well in the Qinling Mountains, where a few pandas are brown and white.

A newborn giant panda cub is about the size of which everyday item?

A stick of butter: the cub weighs only 3 to 5 ounces; after a delayed start, the embryo grows for only about two months before birth.

Which animal family are giant pandas classified in?

Ursidae (bears): scientists long argued over whether the panda was a bear, a raccoon relative or something of its own, until DNA studies confirmed it as a bear.

In which type of habitat do wild giant pandas primarily live?

Temperate mountain forests in a few ranges of central China are all that remain: fossils show giant pandas once lived as far away as Myanmar, Vietnam and the Beijing area.

How long is a giant panda's gestation period?

The giant panda's gestation period is typically 95-160 days (about 3-5 months). However, this is complicated by delayed implantation, where the embryo may float in the uterus before implanting.

A wild giant panda can spend as much as 16 hours a day doing what?

Eating: bamboo gives so little nourishment per mouthful that a panda must feed for most of its waking day, resting between meals to save energy.

Su Lin, the first giant panda shown in the US, arrived in 1937 at Brookfield Zoo near which city?

Chicago: Ruth Harkness brought the infant cub from China in 1936, and Su Lin was the zoo's star attraction until dying there in 1938, barely a year after arriving.

Which Chinese province is home to the largest wild giant panda population?

Sichuan holds most of the world's wild giant pandas and takes in zoo-born ones too: Tai Shan, a cub born at Washington's National Zoo, was flown there in 2010.

Giant pandas grip bamboo stalks with five fingers and which extra feature on each front paw?

A false thumb: it is really an enlarged wrist bone under a fleshy pad, and it lets a panda handle bamboo with almost human dexterity.

In what position does a giant panda usually eat its bamboo?

Sitting upright: a panda eats like a person sitting on the floor, legs stretched out in front, which leaves both front paws free to hold the stalks.

When a giant panda has twins in the wild, what does the mother usually do?

Raise only one cub: she cannot care for two, so the weaker twin is abandoned; zoos get round this by swapping the twins every few days so that each is nursed by its mother.

Outside the breeding season, how do giant pandas typically live?

Alone: adult pandas avoid one another outside the brief spring mating season, keeping in touch through scent marks on trees and rocks that work like a community bulletin board.

Chi Chi, the giant panda who inspired a famous conservation logo, arrived at which zoo in 1958?

London Zoo: the charity's founders chose Chi Chi as their emblem because they wanted a symbol that crossed language barriers and still worked when printed in black and white.

What is the red panda's scientific name?

Ailurus fulgens, named in 1825, carries the Latin fulgens for 'shining' or 'bright'; the red panda received its scientific name some 44 years before the giant panda was formally described in 1869.

Genetic studies place the red panda closest to which group of animals?

Raccoons and weasels, along with skunks, are probably its nearest kin; the red panda is the only living member of its own family and is not a close relative of the giant panda.

How does a threatened red panda defend itself?

Stand on its hind legs: the red panda rears up, forepaws raised, ready to strike with its sharp claws; if that fails, it can release a strong smell from glands at the base of its tail.

Red pandas live in the wild along which great mountain range and in nearby southwestern China?

The Himalayas: red pandas live in cool, steep bamboo forests from the range's eastern end into China, spending most of their time up in the trees, where they shelter and sleep.

Hua Mei, the first giant panda cub to survive to adulthood in the US, was born at which zoo in 1999?

San Diego Zoo: born to Bai Yun in August 1999, Hua Mei became a Panda Cam star, but as the cub of loaned pandas she belonged to China and moved there in 2004.

What is the biggest threat to giant panda survival in the wild?

Habitat loss and fragmentation is the greatest threat to wild giant pandas. Roads, railways, and agriculture have divided panda habitat into isolated patches, reducing genetic diversity and access to bamboo.

How many existing nature reserves were combined to form China's Giant Panda National Park?

About 67 existing nature reserves were merged into the Giant Panda National Park, which spans Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu and was formally established in October 2021 to reconnect roughly 30 isolated panda populations.

What does a red panda use its long, bushy tail for?

A blanket for warmth in cold weather: the red panda sleeps curled up with its bushy tail wrapped over its face, while in heat it sprawls along a branch with legs dangling.

The name 'panda' most likely comes from a word in which language?

The Nepali phrase 'nigalya ponya' has been translated as 'bamboo-footed'; the name was applied to the red panda first and only later to the giant panda.

What periodically happens to bamboo that can leave wild giant pandas at risk of starvation?

It flowers and dies off: all the bamboo of one species blooms and dies together, so pandas need at least two species in their range, and die-offs have starved some populations.

What is the IUCN conservation status of the red panda?

Endangered: numbers keep falling even though the red panda is legally protected in every country where it lives, and poachers still take it for its fur.

Which pair of giant pandas reached Washington's National Zoo in 1972 as a gift from China?

Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing were a goodwill gift from China's premier, and the US sent a pair of musk oxen in return; Hsing-Hsing lived at the National Zoo until 1999.

In 1941 Madame Chiang Kai-shek sent two giant pandas as a gift to which New York zoo?

Bronx Zoo: the pair were a thank-you for aid sent to China in its war with Japan, and they set off only weeks before Pearl Harbor brought the US into the war as well.

Besides bamboo, which of these foods do red pandas also eat?

Fruits, acorns and eggs round out a diet that is still mostly bamboo, which a red panda digests so poorly that it has to eat a great deal of it.

Male giant pandas sometimes do what to leave their scent marks higher up a tree?

A handstand: backing up the trunk on its front paws lifts the panda's rear end, and other pandas take most interest in the highest marks.

In 2006 China's main giant panda sanctuaries were added to which international list?

UNESCO World Heritage List: seven reserves, Wolong among them, were listed together in 2006; protecting panda forest also shelters golden monkeys, takins and red pandas.

When are red pandas most active?

Dawn and dusk: red pandas are mainly crepuscular, though they also stir at night, and they sleep through the hottest part of the day stretched along a branch.

Roughly how much did China charge foreign zoos a year to lease a panda pair in the 2010s?

About $1 million a year per pair under China's standard ten-year loans; the model began in 1984 when two pandas went to Los Angeles Zoo for the Summer Olympics at $50,000 a month each.

What sound does a female giant panda make to signal readiness to mate?

A chirp: giant pandas call a great deal when they meet, bleating like a lamb or kid as a friendly greeting, and they also honk and bark.

Which of these does a wild giant panda do dozens of times every day?

Defecate: a panda cannot digest the cellulose in bamboo, so it pushes huge amounts through its gut quickly, passing waste up to 50 times a day.

Which French missionary, namesake of a rare Chinese deer, made the giant panda known to Western science in 1869?

Armand David got hold of panda furs in 1869, yet it was more than forty years before any Westerner saw a living giant panda in the wild.

How do giant pandas cope with winter?

They move to warmer, lower elevations: giant pandas do not hibernate, since bamboo cannot build fat reserves, so in winter they descend to lower slopes; the coat doubles as camouflage in snow and shade.

The red panda's genus name comes from the Ancient Greek word for which animal?

Cat: the genus name comes from the Greek ailouros, and it fits, because a red panda cleans itself like one, licking its front paws and wiping its face.

Which UK zoo housed the giant pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang from 2011 to 2023?

Edinburgh Zoo received Tian Tian and Yang Guang from China on 4 December 2011 on a ten-year loan, later extended; the pair returned to China in December 2023 without producing a cub.

The red panda is the official state animal of Sikkim, a state in the northeast of which country?

India: Sikkim was a separate kingdom until it became an Indian state in 1975, and the red panda is its state animal.

Before turning to bamboo, what did the giant panda's distant ancestors eat?

A mixed diet including meat: pandas descend from meat-eaters and still have a carnivore's gut, yet they have lost the working gene for tasting umami, the savoury flavour of meat.

For how long each year can a female giant panda conceive?

About 1-3 days: a female ovulates just once a year, in spring, and can conceive only during those two or three days, so zoo breeding is a race against the clock.

Who voices Po, the Dragon Warrior, in DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda films?

Jack Black has voiced Po since 2008: a kung fu fan working in his adoptive father's noodle shop, Po is picked as Dragon Warrior by the tortoise Oogway, to the fury of the Furious Five.

A newborn giant panda cub, born blind and toothless, is which color before its familiar markings grow in?

Pink at birth, a giant panda cub is only about 1/800 of its mother's weight, proportionally the smallest baby of any placental mammal.

Which web browser, first released under the name Phoenix, is named after a nickname for the red panda?

Firefox borrows a nickname of the red panda, which became the project's mascot, yet the animal shown in its logo is a stylized fox.

Two sons of which US president shot a giant panda in 1929, the first Westerners known to do so?

Theodore Roosevelt's sons Kermit and Ted came to regret the hunt, which turned the panda into a big-game prize, and later worked to change scientists' attitudes.

In Pixar's Turning Red, Mei Lee turns into a giant red panda while growing up in which Canadian city?

Toronto is where director Domee Shi grew up, and she built the film on her own experiences there.

Which actor voices Master Shifu, the red panda who trains Po in the Kung Fu Panda films?

Dustin Hoffman and the film's star mostly recorded apart, but they spent one day together to sharpen the scene where their characters face off.

Which delivery company flies giant pandas between zoos and China aboard a jet it calls the Panda Express?

FedEx flew the cub Bei Bei from Washington to China in 2019 on its Panda Express, with a veterinarian and his lifelong keeper on board.

Entrepreneur An Yanshi made headlines by fertilizing which crop with giant panda dung and selling it at record prices?

Tea grown this way went on sale in 2012 at about $200 a cup, reputedly the most expensive in the world.

Which animals did the US send to China in return for the two giant pandas given after Richard Nixon's visit?

Musk oxen were the thank-you gift. The pandas had been offered after Pat Nixon mentioned her fondness for them at a dinner in Beijing.

Which US First Lady joined China's Peng Liyuan to announce the name of the Washington giant panda cub Bei Bei?

Michelle Obama and Peng Liyuan named the five-week-old cub together. Bei Bei means "precious" or "treasure", the same as his older sister Bao Bao.

Which Chinese city is home to a giant panda breeding base that opened in 1987 with six rescued animals?

Chengdu's base began with six pandas rescued from the wild and had recorded 124 panda births by 2008.

Which natural disaster in May 2008 devastated China's Wolong panda research center and killed five reserve guards?

An earthquake wrecked the center, so its giant pandas were relocated to the Bifengxia base. Before the disaster, Wolong drew up to 200,000 visitors a year.

Which metal was used for China's first Panda bullion coins in 1982, a year before a silver version followed?

Gold Pandas stand out among bullion coins because the panda design changes almost every year. Only the 2001 and 2002 issues share one.

Which giant panda in a full-body shell of ice was the official mascot of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics?

Bing Dwen Dwen wears an icy suit that some fans liken to tanghulu, a candied winter treat with a clear sugar coating.

Genetic evidence places the red panda close to weasels, skunks and which ring-tailed mammals, not giant pandas?

Raccoons seemed such close kin that early 20th-century scientists placed the red panda in their family, Procyonidae.

Mr. Ping, the noodle-shop owner who raised Po in the Kung Fu Panda films, is which kind of bird?

Goose though he is, Po's adoptive father runs the most popular noodle shop in the Valley of Peace and is voiced by James Hong.

Kang Kang and Lan Lan, the first giant pandas China gave Japan, went to Ueno Zoo in which city in 1972?

Tokyo received the pair as a gift after China and Japan normalized their relations.

Researchers say the giant panda's bold two-tone coat mainly serves which purpose?

Camouflage works in two settings: the pale fur blends into snow, while the dark shoulders and legs conceal the animal in shade.

Adult giant pandas have few natural enemies, but which big predator is known to attack their cubs?

Snow leopard attacks are one danger for young cubs, along with yellow-throated martens, eagles and feral dogs.

Tohui, the first giant panda born outside China to survive to adulthood, was born in 1981 in which country?

Mexico kept ownership of its home-born pandas, because their line traces back to animals China gave outright before it switched to loans in 1984.

Which American socialite brought Su Lin, the first live giant panda seen in America, back from China in 1936?

Ruth Harkness, a fashion designer, bottle-fed the nine-week-old cub on the journey home, and Shirley Temple was among the stars who later came to see Su Lin.

Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, giant pandas China gave to Taiwan in 2008, have names that together mean what?

Reunion is the meaning of tuan yuan, a politically charged name that was chosen by a public vote in mainland China.

Xiao Qi Ji, a giant panda cub born at Washington's National Zoo in August 2020, has a name meaning what?

Little miracle won an online vote on the zoo's website, and the name was revealed when the cub was 100 days old.

Giant panda cubs Pit and Paule were born in 2019 at which German city's zoo, once home to polar bear Knut?

Berlin had waited a long time for cubs: years of artificial insemination attempts with its earlier panda Bao Bao never produced any.

Europe's first naturally conceived giant panda cub was born in 2007 at Schönbrunn Zoo in which capital city?

Vienna's cub was a male named Fu Long, or Happy Dragon, and two more cubs followed at the same zoo in 2010 and 2013.

Wang Wang and Fu Ni, giant pandas loaned to Australia from 2009 to 2024, lived at the zoo in which city?

Adelaide Zoo's pair were the only giant pandas in the Southern Hemisphere when their Bamboo Forest exhibit opened in 2009.

Which Chinese leader promised a pair of giant pandas after Pat Nixon mentioned her fondness for them at a 1972 dinner?

Zhou Enlai, then China's premier, replied on the spot that he would give her some, and she later attended the ceremony welcoming the pair.

In 1957, which country became the first to receive giant pandas from the People's Republic of China as goodwill gifts?

The Soviet Union received the first panda "goodwill ambassadors" as Mao Zedong sought closer ties with communist allies, and North Korea followed in 1965.

Jia Jia, a giant panda who lived to 38 before dying in 2016, was a star of Ocean Park in which city?

Hong Kong was given Jia Jia and a male, An An, in 1999 to mark the second anniversary of the city's handover from Britain.

Fu Bao, a giant panda who doubled visitor numbers at Everland's Panda World, was born in 2020 in which country?

South Korea fell for Fu Bao during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she was the first giant panda to be born there naturally.

Despite its bamboo diet, the giant panda is classified in which order of mammals?

Carnivora is about ancestry rather than menu, and the red panda belongs to the same order, in a separate family of its own.

Genome sequencing showed giant pandas carry a broken gene for the receptor of which of the five basic tastes?

Umami signals glutamate-rich food, so losing the receptor may have changed what pandas chose to eat, although the loss probably followed their change of diet.

The red panda, a skilled climber, comes down a tree trunk in which way, gripping the bark with its hind feet?

Head-first descents are possible because the red panda's pelvis and hindlimbs have unusually flexible joints, an adaptation for life in the trees.

What covers the soles of a red panda's paws, letting the animal walk across snow in winter?

Dense hair on its soles lets a red panda walk in snow, though the animal typically rests and sleeps up in trees rather than on the ground.

To help reluctant captive giant pandas breed, scientists have tried giving males which well-known human medication?

Viagra was one experiment, and another was showing the animals videos of other giant pandas mating.

In the Sanrio series Aggretsuko, the red panda Retsuko vents her office frustrations by singing which style of music?

Death metal at a karaoke bar is her nightly release, and by the third season she goes public with it as a lucrative side hustle.

In which Rumiko Takahashi manga does Genma Saotome turn into a giant panda whenever he is splashed with cold water?

Ranma ½ gives its hero the same kind of curse from a different spring: Genma's son becomes a girl, and only hot water changes either of them back.

Which British naturalist and Olympic sailing medalist designed the panda logo of a conservation charity he helped found?

Peter Scott won his bronze medal in a one-man dinghy at the 1936 Olympics, and he also set up the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge.

Which American field biologist studied wild giant pandas at Wolong from 1980 and later wrote The Last Panda?

George Schaller was the first Westerner to carry out such fieldwork since before 1949, working on a joint project between China and an international conservation group.

Su Lin, the first live giant panda shown in the United States, was bought in 1937 by which Midwestern zoo?

Brookfield Zoo, outside Chicago, became the first American zoo to exhibit giant pandas, and Su Lin's mounted body is now on display at the Field Museum.

Tai Shan, a giant panda born at Washington's National Zoo in 2005, earned which nickname for his size as a newborn?

Butterstick caught on with bloggers, but it was left off the zoo's internet naming poll, which drew about 200,000 votes.

After the success of America's panda gift, which British politician asked China for giant pandas during a 1974 visit?

Edward Heath's request worked: the pandas Chia-Chia and Ching-Ching arrived at London Zoo later that year.

Which online game made the pandaren, a race of humanoid pandas, playable in its 2012 expansion Mists of Pandaria?

World of Warcraft's pandaren began as an April Fools' style joke by Blizzard artist Samwise Didier before they joined the official story.

Pan Pan the giant panda was the mascot when Beijing first hosted which multi-sport event in 1990?

The Asian Games had never been held in China before, and that edition also saw Taiwan compete for the first time as Chinese Taipei.

Which Nordic country's Ähtäri Zoo sent its giant pandas back to China because it could no longer afford their upkeep?

Finland's pandas, Lumi and Pyry, were named after the snowstorm that was blowing when they arrived in January 2018.

Researchers suggest the dark patches around a giant panda's eyes may help the animals do what?

Identify each other: that is the suggested job of the eye patches, while the dark ears may instead be used to display aggression.

Futa, a red panda at Japan's Chiba Zoological Park, became a television celebrity in 2005 for which ability?

Standing upright for about ten seconds at a time made Futa a star, and he was still doing it in 2020 at 17, roughly 70 in human years.

Copenhagen Zoo's panda enclosure, designed by Bjarke Ingels and opened in 2019, is built in the shape of which symbol?

Yin and yang gives the 4,000-square-metre enclosure its form, and visitors can eat inside it at a restaurant called Bistro Panpan.

Po, a giant panda cub named after the Kung Fu Panda hero in 2011, was born at which US city's zoo?

Atlanta's zoo saw seven cubs born to the same parents, Lun Lun and Yang Yang, who had arrived from China in 1999.

Lin Hui and Chuang Chuang, giant pandas loaned by China in 2003, lived at a zoo in which country?

Thailand was gripped when their cub Lin Bing was born in 2009, and a reality show about the family grew into a dedicated Panda Channel.

Which of the five Fuwa mascots of the 2008 Summer Olympics was based on the giant panda?

Jingjing's design also drew on lotus-shaped porcelain of the Song dynasty, and he stood for the forest among the mascots' natural elements.