Over the long evolutionary process, giant pandas have gradually evolved to rely on high fiber bamboo as their staple food, and have evolved some structural features that adapt to living on bamboo, such as well-developed masseter muscles and dental processes. In addition to having five toes in the front claws, they have also evolved a "pseudo thumb" to form a grip structure for easy grasping of bamboo.
Giant pandas are a very intelligent animal, manifested in their excellent feeding strategies. They not only choose the bamboo species with the best nutritional value in the region, but also prioritize the parts with the highest nutritional value. The preferred order of feeding is bamboo shoots, tender bamboo, and bamboo poles. According to the different parts of bamboo that giant pandas consume in different seasons, their daily feed intake is roughly as follows: bamboo shoots are about 23-40kg; Or about 10-14kg of bamboo leaves; Or about 17kg of bamboo stalks. With changes in climate and food distribution, giant pandas also have a habit of vertical migration. In summer, they move up high mountains and hunt for food, while in autumn and winter, the snow on high mountains moves down to middle and low mountain areas.
The food of giant pandas stays in the body for a short time, has a fast digestion speed, and has a low digestion and utilization rate for bamboo. Therefore, they adopt a large amount of food consumption and rapid excretion to ensure that they eat more and obtain enough energy to meet their needs. So it's not uncommon for giant pandas to spend the vast majority of their time eating and digesting, spending more than 10 hours or more every day eating about 20 kilograms of bamboo.
Edit by Chuan-X Panda 2023-11-05 View more at https://chuanxpanda.com/blogs/news