EVEN THOUGH SO MANY OF ITS BEAR RELATIONS SLEEP THROUGH THE WINTER, the giant panda doesn’t hibernate: as we’ve seen (see page 109), its restrictive diet precludes its ever building up the necessary fat reserves. So, all year round, in sunshine or snow, it’s the same old scramble for the panda to survive, which means the same daily routine, and in particular, the same industrial-scale eating.
A FOOD FOR ALL SEASONS
The bamboo season never ends because there are so many different bamboo species. The panda is believed to be able to eat over twenty different kinds, and this adaptability is essential because every single plant in the same bamboo species sprouts, grows, flowers and then finally dies back at the same time. So if the panda depended on just one species for its existence, it would never be able to survive these cyclical famines (and it’s living on a nutritional knife edge at the best of times). As it is, when one bamboo source of food fails, the panda is able to turn to another.
This helps to explain another panda-paradox: the fact that an animal whose day-to-day life is so static takes the trouble to establish and defend such a comparatively extensive territory. For however little he or she may be given to wander in normal circumstances, the panda still needs the extra space as an insurance against the moment when one or more of its staple bamboo species becomes unavailable. Conversely, this is the reason why the panda has, in the past, been hit so hard by even relatively modest encroachments on its territory by loggers or those clearing land for cultivation. It’s not enough for it to be surrounded by a seemingly endless supply of bamboo in its favourite thicket, for the moment that that supply fails – as it eventually will – the panda has to be able to find another source of nutrition.
KEEPING OUT THE COLD
Finding nourishment is only one of life’s challenges for the panda: for example, although its natural habitat’s latitude may be subtropical, the mountain winters can still be harsh. Even so, the panda’s fur keeps it snug and warm in the most of hostile conditions.
A layer of dense and fleecy under-fur is protected in turn by an outer layer of longer, coarser guard hairs. A little oily to the touch, its fur’s water-resistant properties enable the panda to wade or swim in icy rivers without becoming chilled. The length of the outer fur varies: the black saddle across the shoulders and down the forelegs grows up to 7cm; the white hair further back is a little shorter, but beneath the belly it may grow to a length of 10cm.
The panda’s fur extends across the pads beneath its paws, reducing heat loss in cold weather, while also increasing friction and enhancing the panda’s grip in icy and snowy conditions.
IN BLACK AND WHITE
The panda’s colouring is the key to its charm, its dazzling white fur being set off by the blackness of its legs and shoulders and the blotches of its big-eyed and bob-eared ‘baby face’. But there’s no place in the evolutionary scheme for the survival of the cutest, and the panda’s appearance certainly wasn’t designed to please us.
Quite why it looks as it does is hard to say. It’s undeniable, however, that what may appear outlandish in the context of a zoo enclosure may not seem half as strange on a snowy, rock-strewn Sichuan hillside, where a black-and-white look would blend right in. The same hardly holds true for the summer months, though, and the idea that its black-and-white colouring would camouflage an animal against a green background is so counterintuitive as to seem perverse. Yet it may well be that the panda’s piebald patterning comes into play in this situation. For even if the colours themselves are incongruous, their irregular arrangement may help to break up the panda’s outline on the forest floor, where the sun alternates with the shade.
With its dense, soft fur for warmth, and its hairy-soled paws for grip, the panda is well equipped to deal with the very worst of the winter weather.
