And yet Heffalumps and Woozles remain critically endangered.
Perth Zoo is Saving Numbats and Dibblers From Extinction
Zooborns, via Murray C.
Ready to spring into action!
“Kanga-roo” Kitten Hops Her Way Into Her Rescuer’s Arms
Love Meow, via Me
You know you want to boop it.
Halls Gap Zoo Successfully Breeds Spotted-tail Quolls
Zooborns, via Arne
Jeez, rub it in, why don't ya?
Meet Suki, The Traveling Cat Who’s Living A Better Life Than You
Bored Panda, via Andrew Y.
Give you three guesses why that floor's so clean.
Michigan Cat Shows Off Guinness World Record Longest Tail
Love Meow, via Andrew Y. and Sylvia C.
And finally: Oh Boy! It’s Bamboo Again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wbhzFWXBO4&rel=0
From sender-inner C.D.
Termite Custard – my new indie band.
Yeah, I think I’ll pass on the custard, thanks.
Suki the travelling kitty is gorgeous.
Geezus! gah! the chewing panda!
I just love the enthusiasm, and the skill with which the, presumably, dry, hard parts are removed.
Panda keepers collect bamboo using big two-handed loppers, and pandas just bite those stalks in half. They look cute because of those big chubby cheeks, but it’s all muscle under there.
Couldn’t take my eyes off the Panda. Snapped that bamboo like it was celery on a plate of crudités! I’m hungry now.
Sorry but now I’m curious to google Panda poop. Cube shaped?
Giant pandas almost exclusively eat bamboo, and they’ve been doing that for about 2 million years.
So it’s quite curious that their gut bacteria isn’t really equipped to process all that plant matter. In fact, the animals only digest about 17 percent of the nearly 30 pounds of bamboo they eat throughout the day, according to a study published Tuesday in the American Society for Microbiology’s open-access journal, mBio.
Which means that no matter how much giant pandas eat, most of their efforts go into pooping undigested bamboo.
How’d they end up in this mess? Pandas used to eat both meat and plants before they got into the bamboo life. “Unlike other herbivores that have successfully evolved anatomically specialized digestive systems to efficiently deconstruct fibrous plant matter, the giant panda still retains a gastrointestinal tract typical of carnivores,” the authors wrote.
Study co-author Xiaoyan Pang of Shanghai Jiao Tong University said in a statement that their findings imply “the giant panda’s gut microbiota may not have well adapted to its unique diet, and places pandas at an evolutionary dilemma.”
Another article published this week in Scientific Reports compared the gut bacteria in giant pandas to that in red pandas, who also consume bamboo. The researchers found that giant pandas have gut bacteria more closely related to black bears. What’s more, a giant panda’s gut is completely distinct from that of a red panda.
Taken together, both studies underscore the giant panda’s place as a bear in the animal kingdom, while red pandas are more closely linked to the raccoon, said Mike Maslanka, head of the nutrition science department at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
Giant pandas at the National Zoo are given somewhere between 50 to 100 pounds of bamboo daily. The leaves have less fiber and are easier to digest; the bamboo stalk may have more fiber and are harder to digest. Giant pandas have to plow through a lot of it so they can get the nutrients they need, and pandas’ digestive systems have adapted to pass all that volume.
I guess pandas devote all their energy, evolutionarily speaking, to maintaining insanely high levels of utter adorableness and do not bother with efficient nutrition.
Darwinian Cuteness Factor is set to extreme here.
I have a notebook with a Panda Poop Paper cover. In paper form, it’s flat.
Roflol. Only here at Cutetropolis would it be “normal” to have a Panda Poop Notebook. Did you purchase it in the Cutetropolis Gift Shop? My Wombat Poop Dice are a real conversation starter.
OMG those cat links! I’m ded from cuteness and awe.
*panda finishes first bamboo shoot*
*throws stub to ground*
“I LIKE THIS! ANOTHER!!”
Numbats, dibblers and quolls—Oh my!
The Perth zoo had better have at least 1 Dibbler named C.M.O.T. Just sayin’.
There are seriously creatures called Numbats and Dibblers?
Yep – along with the Quolls, they’re part of the Dr. Seuss Species Preservation Program.
?