TB-Panda Bear Cub

To Travel around the world, going from cache to cache, from geocacher to geocacher. Pls move it around as soon as possible. TB-Panda Bear Cub wants people to know about his species. Pictures of this TB's adventures are more than welcome!

The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca, "black-and-white cat-foot") is a mammal classified in the bear family (Ursidae), native to central-western and southwestern China. The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. It once lived in lowland areas, but farming, forest clearing, and other development now restrict the Giant Panda to the mountains. China has 239 Giant Pandas in captivity and another 27 living outside the country. It also estimated that around 1,590 pandas are currently living in the wild. A large adult panda can weigh about 100-150 kg. They have a white coat with black fur around their eyes, on their ears, muzzle, legs and shoulders. The unique physical features of the species include broad, flat molars and an enlarged wrist bone that functions as an opposable thumb - both of these adaptations are used for holding, crushing and eating bamboo. The diet of pandas consists almost entirely of the leaves, stems, and shoots of various bamboo species. It consumes 12-38 kg of bamboo a day to meet its energy requirements. Bamboo die-back is a natural phenomenon, occurring every 15-120 years depending on the type of bamboo. Once the bamboo dies it can take a year to regenerate from seed and as long as 20 years before a new crop can support a giant panda population. Bamboo die-back may have helped to disperse giant pandas in the distant past, as individuals migrated to seek areas with other species of bamboo, but now human settlements form a barrier against giant panda movements.
Today, the giant panda's future remains uncertain. This peaceful member of the bear family faces a number of threats. Its forest habitat, in the mountainous areas of southwest China, is fragmented and giant panda populations are small and isolated from each other. Meanwhile, poaching remains an ever-present threat. Even at low levels, this activity can have grave consequences for such an endangered species.
Unfortunately this is another of the top 10 endangered species on planet earth! There is a lot of information available on the Giant Panda, you can also visit the internet site: (visit link)