Red pandas have always remained within the shadows of a more well-known panda. Now it’s time to show the tiny man his due.
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Facts about Red Pandas
1. There are two extended relatives.
Red pandas are currently throughout The Eastern Himalayas. However, the first fossilized red panda was found farther away than in the United Kingdom. In 1888, the fossilized lower jaw and molar of a cougar-sized beast known as”the Giant Panda (unrelated to the modern giant panda) were found.
The fossils were discovered within Spain, Eastern Europe, and even in the United States. Five millennia ago, Tennessee had been home to an enormous red panda that was likely extinct due to the introduction of raccoons.
2. They’re VEGETARIAN CARNIVORES.
It may seem absurd, but carnivore isn’t a synonym for meat-eater. Carnivore is an order of life that includes animals such as bears or dogs and cats. While they are primarily carnivores, some are omnivores, while others are vegetarians. Red pandas are called carnivores since they’re derived from the same ancestors as other carnivores.
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They typically eat nothing apart from bamboo and some insects. While giant pandas consume the entire bamboo plant, red pandas consume only the young leaves. Since this is an unnutritious nutrition source for them, they have to stay for 13 hours each day looking for food, and they could lose up to fifteen percent of the body’s weight during winter.
3. They’re a bit bigger than a DOMESTIC cat.
However, their tails can can add a length of 18 inches. Red pandas are solitary in trees, high in the mountains. So they wrap their huge curly tails to stay warm. (They are also using them to help with balance.)
4. They have a false thumb.
Another characteristic (along with diet) that giant pandas and red pandas have in common. Since both pandas have false thumbs–which are a swollen wrist bone was believed to be an adaptation of eating bamboo. However, the red pandas’ more carnivore ancestors had this characteristic too. According to a study conducted in 2006, it occurred as “one among the most shocking instances of convergence invertebrates.”
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Convergent evolution happens when two species that aren’t related in similar circumstances develop to look alike. In this instance, the red panda’s thumb evolved to climb trees. It was later adapted to the bamboo diet. Meanwhile, giant pandas developed this nearly identical design due to their bamboo diet.
5. They’re artists who are escaping.
Rusty Red Panda was in the Smithsonian National Zoo for just three weeks before he decided to escape in June 2013. The method he used to escape? Due to the heavy rain, a tree branch was pushed into his electric fence’s enclosure. The subsequent panda hunt (and endless pandamonium jokes) fascinated Twitter (tweeters employed their hashtag to search for Rusty) up until the time he was spotted in the nearby neighborhood.
After his daring adventure, Rusty became a father who forced him to put his wild childhood behind his back and settle down. It could have been much worse. Following a similar incident in Dresden, Germany, the authorities managed to get another panda to fall from an overhanging tree using a hose that sprayed the tree with water. The panda fell 30 feet to the ground, causing the concussion. (Ultimately, the panda was okay.)
The red pandas also have been spotted escaping from Zoos in London, Birmingham, and Rotterdam. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums has even warned in their official care guideline, “beware red pandas: they are the escape artist” [PDF”Beware: Red pandas are escape artists.”
6. One ESCAPE LED to something called the RED PANDA EFFECT.
The unfortunate red panda involved in 1998’s Rotterdam escape was discovered dead shortly after the hunt for it started. However, the incident led to an extremely bizarre psychological remark. Even after the panda’s corpse was found, overr 100 people claimed to have seen the animal alive. This was a false report.
There’s no reason to believe that multiple red pandas were wandering about in Rotterdam and the red pandas have a distinct look that is imagining them to be either a cat or dog was not likely. People were able to have a glimpse of a red panda, and they did, even though there wasn’t any in the area; scientists call this”the Red Panda Effect.
7. THERE’S AN INTERNET BROWSER NAMED AFTER THEM.
Mozilla’s primary browser Firefox name is the same as red pandas. In the beginning, Mozilla wanted to name the browser Firebird; however, they found out that an open-source project had been using the same name. To avoid offending anyone, they decided to choose Firefox, a different designation to refer to the red panda. In a perfect example of cuteness, in 2010, Mozilla adopted two red pandas born in the Tennessee Zoo. Knoxville Zoo.
8. There is only one genuine PANDA, and you can probably guess which one it is.
When the red panda was first discovered around 1820, the animal was known as the panda (the source of the name is disputed; however it is believed to come in the Nepali word pony, which translates to “bamboo or plant-eating creature”). 40 years afterward, Europeans found a new animal in China and named it the Parti-Colored bear, because unlike brown bears or black bears, this animal was multi-colored.
9. There HAS been a 140-year TAXONOMIC MIX-UP.
Be prepared to be confused. In the 18th century, scientists discovered that the bears that were colored in a parti-color and pandas (red) panda appeared to be remarkably similar. The jaws of the two animals were similar to each other than like other animals; they were close to each other, each had false thumbs, and their food habits were comparable. The decision was to recognize that (red) panda to be an animal species.
In the early 20th century, this decision was reversed. Parti-colored bears were classified as bears, along with (red) pandas who became relatives of the raccoon.
In the decade 1910, the decision was made that the bears with particolored colors weren’t born in the first place. They were pandas and distant cousins to the raccoon. Since they were no longer considered bears, they needed an alteration in their name.
They were renamed giant pandas, but the panda that was the true one was changed to the lesser or red panda (to refer to an article from the 1920 issue in Popular Science: “Zoologists reverently refer to this unique creature by the name of “giant panda.” The most popular cognomen for it is called the bear-raccoon. ‘”).
10. But RED PANDAS ARE RED’S fashion.
In the 1980s, genetic evidence suggested that giant pandas were bears and that red pandas were to their own family, called the Ailuridae. They may be like they are, but they’re not related.
This implies that if you’re the kind of person who squirms when they hear someone call a bison or a Koala a bear, then you should put aside the panda designation. Instead, you should call it a “parti-colored bear,” which is the traditional English name (but If you were to refer to it as the bear-raccoon, nobody would stop you from doing so). Giant pandas aren’t pandas. Only one is a real panda.
11. However, this doesn’t affect KUNGFU PANDA 3.
There’s still a Kung Fu panda in the show: Shifu, a red panda.
12. THEY’RE ENDANGERED.
As per the World Wildlife Fund, there are less than 10,000 remaining red pandas on the planet. The destruction of habitat increases the chance of being extinct.
