Today is May 20th, a unique Valentine's Day in China. "520" is a homophonic pronunciation of "I love you" in Chinese. Did you confess your love today? Do you know how pandas express love and courtship? Wild pandas compete for marriage, while captive pandas go on blind dates.
From March to May every year, it is the annual courtship period for giant pandas. During this period, captive giant pandas will hold a "blind date conference" arranged by the staff, while wild giant pandas will follow their instincts and independently search for their significant other.
1. Wild pandas transform into Kung Fu pandas to find their wives
From March to May every year, it is the annual "blind date ceremony" for wild giant pandas in the Qinling Mountains. At this time, giant pandas no longer move alone, but go far away to search for mates. Female giant pandas will compete to attract relatives. They leave their pheromones on the surrounding trees, telling male pandas that there are beautiful female pandas here. Then, they climb onto a big tree and wait quietly for their suitors.
In the Foping Nature Reserve in Shaanxi, Qinling giant pandas usually gather at the end of February each year, and mating usually occurs from late March to early April. Often, a female giant panda sits on a tree to watch the "male panda struggle", and three to eight male giant pandas decide who wins and becomes the "groom" through "attacking and defending". On March 21st this year, forest rangers in Foping Nature Reserve discovered a giant panda lying on a tree while patrolling, with five or six giant pandas fighting under the tree. "On that day, several male giant pandas fought fiercely for mating rights, roaring loudly." The ranger said that the champion who ultimately won was qualified to mate with the female giant panda, or the female giant panda would voluntarily choose one of their "favorite pandas".
Although pandas usually appear gentle, in order to defeat their competitors, they instantly become "kung fu pandas", fighting and roaring... According to Cao Qing, a senior engineer at the Foping National Nature Reserve in Shaanxi, wild giant pandas are known as "bamboo hermits". They live alone and do not communicate with each other. They only fall in love when spring arrives. After the mating period, pandas still return to their daily life of living alone.
2. How do wild pandas find their desired panda lover?
Most communication among pandas is achieved through scent markers left in their habitats. Giant pandas apply secretions from their perianal glands to tree stumps, walls, ground, and areas they frequently pass through. After marking, the tree bark or scratches will be peeled off at the marked area to attract the attention of other pandas. A female giant panda leaving a scent indicates that she is ready for love and hopes that the male will come to seek love.
So, why do wild giant pandas compete for marriage? "'Competing to attract relatives' is a special way for giant pandas to reproduce, providing stronger individuals with more opportunities for mating, which is beneficial for the continuation and evolution of wild giant panda populations. Recently, in the Giant Panda National Park, wild giant pandas have been active frequently, and even fighting for companionship is common, indicating that the wild giant panda population has strong reproductive capacity and the habitat of giant pandas has been effectively protected." Cao Qing, senior engineer of the Foping National Nature Reserve in Shaanxi, said.
After a date between two beloved pandas, the female panda will become pregnant, have children, and raise offspring. In fact, because pandas are very picky about choosing their partners, if they don't like the scent of the other person, they won't mate at all. Although pandas have a courtship period from March to May each year, in fact, their estrus period is very short, and they do not mate during these two months. However, the estrus period varies depending on the individual, with longer estrus periods lasting around a few days and shorter ones lasting only a few hours. And when female giant pandas experience hormonal decline, they no longer cooperate with suitors and may even engage in physical altercations with their suitors. Experts say that such violent scenes are normal during the mating process of wild giant pandas.
3. Captive pandas mainly rely on "blind dates" to find partners
Unlike wild pandas, captive pandas rely on matchmaking organized by staff to find partners. Whenever the panda breeding season arrives, the staff will select suitable male individuals for them to match.
In May 2023, the Shaanxi Qinling Giant Panda Research Center held a blind date event for 14 giant pandas, including 8 female pandas and 6 male pandas. As the only captive brown male giant panda in the world, the 14-year-old "Qizai" has once again "registered" to participate in the "blind date conference". As it is in its prime, it has participated in breeding for the sixth time this year. In addition, young female giant pandas "Mengmeng" and "Xiaoxin" have joined the blind date team for the first time.
It is reported that under captive conditions, female giant pandas enter sexual maturity at around 6 years old and male giant pandas at around 7 years old. Female giant pandas only experience estrus once a year in spring and the duration varies. The suitable time for conception is only 1-2 days, with an average pregnancy period of over 140 days. The cubs are usually born in summer and autumn. Generally speaking, female giant pandas that gave birth in the previous year do not participate in reproduction in the following year and are mainly responsible for raising their cubs.
The "Panda Love Story" started from the previous winter, including physical examinations, vaccination, nutritional regulation, and physical training. At the giant panda breeding base, the staff try their best to diversify the genetic diversity of the offspring of giant pandas, hoping to have specific two pandas mate, but this is very difficult. Pandas do not have any requirements for their mates like other animals, they will make bidirectional choices.
Researchers have found that compared to "blind dates", pandas that "freely mate" are more likely to mate successfully and have a higher birth rate. If two pandas do not like each other, there is almost no possibility of giving birth; When both parties have a favorable impression of each other, the success rate of mating reaches 80%.
4. Captivated pandas and wild pandas sometimes intermarry
In order to diversify the genetic diversity of giant pandas and avoid inbreeding, captive and wild pandas sometimes intermarry, which involves placing captive female giant pandas that have undergone wild training in the wild for a competition to recruit relatives.
Wild male giant pandas will compete for the championship in a martial arts competition after receiving female mating information. Strong pandas can attract female attention and leave after mating with them. In this way, female captive giant pandas have been successfully introduced into the wild, and in the coming period, they will continue to conceive, give birth, forage, and raise panda cubs alone in the wild. After the panda cub grows up for a certain period of time, the staff will locate its position based on the collar worn by the female giant panda, and then bring the mother and son back to the artificial environment.
In 2019, the giant panda "Qiao Qiao" returned to the wild in Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan. In March of that year, it was sent to Tiantai Mountain for wild introduction. In early April, it met and married a wild male giant panda. In September, it gave birth to a pair of twins in the wild. In December, when the cubs reached a certain age, the staff brought them back for captive breeding.