Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Giant Panda - Tai Shan

Giant Panda - Tai Shan by WVJazzman
Giant Panda - Tai Shan a photo by WVJazzman on Flickr.
Explore #52 11-2-2007
The giant panda, a black-and-white bear, has a body typical of bears. It has black fur on ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage into their shade-dappled snowy and rocky surroundings. The panda's thick, wooly coat keeps it warm in the cool forests of its habitat. Giant pandas have large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles for crushing tough bamboo. Many people find these chunky, lumbering animals to be cute, but giant pandas can be as dangerous as any other bear.

About the size of an American black bear, giant pandas stand between two and three feet tall at the shoulder (on all four legs), and reach four to six feet long. Males are larger than females, weighing up to 250 pounds in the wild. Females rarely reach 220 pounds.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Please use only family-friendly words. Otherwise, your comment will be filtered out. :D
You can use some HTML tags, such as b, i, a