Q: What are the physical changes of giant pandas when they grow?
A: Giant panda cubs are flesh-red like little mice when they are born, and their body weight is generally 80-200 grams. After 7 days, black color gradually appeared around the forelimbs, ears and eyes. In about 20 days, the black and white body hair grows evenly, and they gradually gain the ability to regulate body temperature. After about 40 days, the giant panda cub gradually opens its eyes. And their eyes will be fully opened at 2 months, but at this time they are still unable to stand and walk. After more than 3 months, the cub looks exactly the same as the giant panda, and it begins to learn to walk.
Q: How many babies do giant pandas usually give birth to?
A: In the wild environment, giant pandas usually give birth to single young, but in captivity, 50% of giant pandas can give birth to two cubs each time, and rarely give birth to three cubs .
Q: How many babies can a female giant panda have in her lifetime?
A: In the wild, a female giant panda can produce 4 to 8 cubs in her lifetime.
Q: When and where were the wild giant panda twins first discovered?
A: In 1990, the wild giant panda twin cubs, which had been raised for about 45 days, were first discovered in Wolong National Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province.
Q: How long does it take for female giant pandas to get pregnant?
A: The female pandas has displayed delayed implantation, with the shortest being 73 days, the longest being 324 days, and the average being about 120 days.
Q: Why is the gestation time of giant pandas so different?
A: Because the fertilized eggs of giant pandas will go through delayed implantation. After female pandas are mated in estrus in spring, the fertilized eggs reach the uterus from the fallopian tube and do not implant immediately, but after a period of free roaming in the uterus before implanting, the implantation time is delayed by 1.5 to 10 months.
Q: Where do wild giant pandas give birth?
A: Wild giant pandas start looking for suitable caves to make nest before giving birth. In primeval forests, they choose very old and hollow tree cavities or burrows at the roots of large trees. In the harvested secondary forest where there are few old trees, they choose natural caves or burrows in the forest.
Q: What does newborn baby panda look like?
A: The newly born panda cub looks like a naked mouse, with a relatively big head and a long tail. Its body length is about 15~17 cm, the tail length is 4.5~5.2 cm, the hind feet are 2.2~2.5 cm long, and the weight is about 100 grams. Its eyes are closed, the whole body is pink, with sparse white hair, and the ears are like two fleshy peanuts. It can not stand or crawl, but can raise its head and cry loudly.
Q: What does newborn baby panda eat?
A: Newly-born baby panda only eats its mother's milk. During the first 14 days after the cub was born, it stayed close to her mother, often making shrill cries in its mother's arms. In the next spring, the cub has already begun to walk with its mothers and learn to eat the young bamboo leaves. When its mother is not around, it usually spends time in the trees, and the tall conifers become a safe island for it to avoid predators. At 8 to 9 months old, the cub starts to be weaned and begins to learn from its mother the skills of feeding in different seasons and different terrains.
Q: Does newborn panda cub grow fast?
A: Newly-born giant panda cub is very small, only 1/1000 of its mother's weight, but it can grow rapidly. A 3-month-old cub can weigh 5-6 kg, and a 6-month-old cub can weigh about 12 kg. When the cub reaches the age from 1 to 4 years old, it can weigh 38, 72, 87 and 97 kg respectively.
Q: What is the average daily weight gain of a juvenile panda?
A: After the cub is born, due to dehydration, poor adaptability to the new environment, and breastfeeding, its weight is always lower than the birth weight in the first 3 days. Its weight can only be restored to the birth weight on the 4th day. From day 5, its weight increases almost linearly with age. Its average weight at 1 month will reach about 1.2 kg, which is about 10 times the weight at birth. It can be seen that the growth and development speed of the cub is very fast. After that, the average daily weight gain will reach about 36 grams in the next month, and 74 to 80 grams in the second to sixth months.
Q: What is the growth of the body length of juvenile panda?
A: The increase in body length is an important indicator to reflect the growth and development of a juvenile panda. Under normal circumstances, its body length is linearly increasing with its age. In general, its length on the first day of birth is 15 cm. It will reach 30.1 cm on the 30th day, 42.1 cm over the 2nd month, 53.2 cm over the 3rd month, 63.0 cm over 4th month, 70.5 cm over the 5th month, and 80.3 cm over the 6th month.
Q: How many parenting postures does the giant panda mother have?
A: For the first three days after the birth of the newborn cub, the giant panda mother nurses the cub in a sitting position most of the time. As its little child grows up, it will increase the supine and side parenting postures, and its strength of the hug also decreases, gradually giving the little child a certain space for movement. In the first few days of her cub's birth, the mother generally cuddles the baby as much as possible, and rarely eats and defecates. Even if it leaves occasionally, the time is short.
Q: What is the purpose of a panda mother licking her cub's whole body with her tongue?
A: There are five main functions: First, it is to clean the whole body of the cub; second, because its saliva contains ferritin, by licking the baby's whole body, it has the effect of anti-disease disinfection and prevention of infection; third, it is to promote the microcirculation of the baby; fourth, it is to keep the skin moist and prevent the excessive evaporation of water; fifth, it is to stimulate the defecation of the baby.
Q: What is the importance of early social activities of giant panda cubs?
A: After decades of observation and research, it has been found that the early social activities of panda cubs will have a huge impact on their future reproductive and maternal behaviors when they turn into adult pandas. Due to the need to increase the population of giant pandas in captivity, the cubs will be separated from the mother by human when the cub is half a year old, so that the mother can be in heat and breed in the next year. However, this practice will make the half-year-old cubs lose the opportunity to live and learn with the mother at an early age, and some cubs do not even have the opportunity to communicate with other cubs. Giant pandas that lack early social activities are likely to have many abnormal behaviors in adulthood, such as strong aggression, incorrect mating posture, and incorrect feeding methods for their newborn babies. Relatively speaking, the lack of early social activities of these young cubs has greater and more significant adverse effects on male pandas.
Q: How does a panda cub communicate with its mother?
A: Before the panda cub has any hearing and vision, it mainly relies on their sense of touch, smell and calls to communicate with their mother, and feedback information such as heat and cold, hunger, tightness of the hug, and whether it is looking for nipples. Its mother will judge the different needs of her cub according to the cries. Sometimes she will move the cub to get close to the nipples, sometimes she will lick it, and sometimes she will walk around with her cub in her mouth. In a word, the mother will adjust her behavior at any time according to the needs of her cub, so the first three days after the birth to the cub will be very hard for her.
Q: What are the behaviors of newborn panda cubs?
A: The newborn panda cubs are not fully developed in the mother's body, and their sensory systems have not been fully grown. The cubs and their mothers mainly rely on sound to communicate.
Their common behaviors are:
(1) Screaming Their screaming is divided into two situations, one is a low pitch sound, and the other is a high pitch sound. This sound is made when the cubs feel cold outside of the mother, usually to ask the mother to adjust her position.
(2) croaking This kind of call is similar to frog croaking, but the pitch is very low. It is often made immediately after the scream, indicating a pleasant feeling. It is the signal sent by the cub when the mother is adjusting its position and the cub feels comfortable.
(3) Continuous screaming This is a signal sent by the cub when it feels extreme discomfort or when it asks the mother for breastfeeding. Sometimes such scream will continue for a long time until the cub feels satisfied.
(4) Trembling When the cub is exposed outside the mother, the cub will tremble because of the coldness. Then, the mother will adjust the position of the cub and completely cover it to keep it warm.
(5) Breastfeeding When the cub is hungry, it will look for the teat and make continuous screams. At this time, its mother will help it to find the teat. Before it reaches 1 to 5 days old, the cub feeds at different intervals, 6 to 12 times a day and night. The duration of each feeding varies from half a minute to more than 10 minutes, and some as long as 30 minutes. After it reaches 15 days old, the frequency of breastfeeding gradually decreases to 3 to 4 times a day. (6) Smell As the cub grows, it begins to explore the surrounding environment by smell, and the communication between mother and the cub also begins in this way.
(7) Crawling Before the cub reaches 2 months old, it has almost no ability to move, except for feeding or sleeping, it can only wriggle when looking for nipples. After 2 months old, it can crawl, but its limbs are not coordinated and the crawling distance is short.
(8) Unsteady walking at around 4 months old, the cub starts to walk, but the strength of its limbs is not balanced, the walking is unstable, and it often rolls on the ground.
(9) Walking and climbing When the strength of the cub's limbs is balanced, it will start to acquire the ability for normal activities. At this time, it is able to not only walk around but also climb, but the range of these activities is not long. Sometimes when its range of activities gets too long, its mother will bring it back.
Q: It is said that panda mothers sometimes abandon their cub, is that true?
A: When female pandas give birth to one cub, they will take good care of it; when they give birth to two or more cubs, almost all female pandas will choose the healthiest and strongest one to feed, and discard the rest ones. This is the abandonment behavior of giant pandas. In captivity, some female pandas do not have the ability to care for all their cubs, and the abandoned cubs are usually fed by human.
Q: Does inbreeding affect the survival of wild giant panda populations?
A: All species have developed their own unique mechanisms and strategies to avoid inbreeding. So far, there is no direct evidence showing that inbreeding is a problem for wild pandas. But the fact is that in some areas, the giant panda habitat is severely fragmented, and giant pandas are fragmented into multiple small populations. Future conservation work will focus on connecting these isolated populations, make them communicate with each other so as to improve genetic diversity.
Q: How long does it take for giant pandas to start teething after birth? When does a cub develop its baby teeth?
A: A giant panda cub begins to grow teeth 3 months after birth, and by 6 months, its baby teeth are basically fully grown.
Q: When does a panda start changing its teeth? How long does it take for its teeth replacement process to end?
A: When the panda cub grows to about 8 months old, the deciduous teeth gradually fall off and its teeth replacement process begins; all the deciduous teeth are replaced by the permanent teeth at the age of 15 to 17 months.
Q: When are giant panda cubs weaned?
A: In the wild, from birth to 7 months old, the nutritional acquisition of the cubs is completely dependent on the mother's breastfeeding, and the weaning begins at about 8 to 9 months old.
Q: Will male panda help to raise its cub?
A: The male panda will not help the female panda to raise their cub. It leaves the female panda after mating. The female panda undertakes all the pregnancy, calving, raising and training of the cub.
Q: How old do wild giant panda cubs leave their mothers to live independently?
A: Wild giant panda cubs usually leave their mothers to live independently at the age of 1.5. The daughter will be married to other places, but the son still lives in its mother's nest. It will leave its mother's nest at the age of 2.5 to establish its own territories.
Q: What is the importance of learning for the panda cubs?
A: Along with their own growth, giant panda cubs will learn many skills from their mothers, such as avoiding predators, climbing trees, choosing appropriate bamboo, and finding water sources. In the wild, when a panda cub reaches 1.5 to 2.5 years old, it will have to face the world independently. Typically, after a cub has grown up, it has to forage, play, and rest alone. However, in the early days of its independent life, the young panda usually does not get too far from its mother's nest, and will not establish its own territory of activity until its gradually adaption to the outside world.
