Red Panda Playing With A Pumpkin
Licence: Standard YouTube Licence
About the Red Panda
The Red Panda, or “firefox,” is often referred to as the “lesser panda” in deference to the better-known giant panda. Others prefer “first panda” – Western scientists described it 50 years earlier, and gave pandas their name. Few people outside its native habitat have even heard of the red panda, let alone seen one.
The Two Sub-species of the Red Panda
The red panda has been previously classified in the families
Procyonidae (raccoons) and Ursidae (bears), but recent research has
placed it in its own family Ailuridae, in superfamily Musteloidea along
with Mustelidae and Procyonidae. Two subspecies are recognized:
Ailurus fulgens fulgens: Found in Nepal, northeastern India (West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh), Bhutan, and part of China.
Ailurus fulgens styani (also known as
a. f. refulgens):
Only found in China (in the Hengduan Mountains in Sichuan and the East
Nujiang River of Yunnan Province) and northern Myanmar.
The head and body length of red pandas averages 56 to 63 cm (22 to 25 in), and their tails about 37 to 47 cm (15 to 19 in).
Behavior
Red pandas are generally solitary, but there are a couple of
exceptions to the rule. First, young red pandas grow relatively slowly,
so they develop extended associations with their mothers that last for
over a year. Second, red pandas have short relationships during the
annual breeding season.
The home ranges of female red pandas often measure about one square
mile, while males can live in areas twice that size. Male home ranges
frequently overlap with at least one female home range and sometimes
expand during the breeding season. Because red pandas constantly need
to conserve energy, they only cover 650 to 1,000 feet of their home
ranges per day and about 25% of their home ranges per month.
Red pandas have several ways of marking their territories and home
ranges. These include urine, secretions from anal glands, and scents
from glands on the pads of their feet. They have also been known to use
communal latrine sites to stake out territory and share information
with others. In addition, red pandas often communicate using body
language (such as head bobbing and tail arching) and a variety of noises
(such as a threatening “huff-quack” and a warning whistle).
(Image from Tambako the Jaguar on Flickr)
Food
The red panda’s diet is very unusual for a mammal and consists mostly
of bamboo. When the weather is warm enough, they also eat insects and
fruit. Although the giant panda eats almost every part of the bamboo
plant (except the roots), the red panda only eats the youngest, most
tender shoots and leaves. In addition, the red panda chews the bamboo
thoroughly, whereas the giant panda hardly chews at all.
The red panda’s dietary specialization has an profound impact on the
animal’s daily life. For one thing, bamboo is very high in indigestible
fiber, making it extraordinarily difficult for red pandas to extract
the nutrients that they need. Cows, horses, and other herbivorous
mammals normally have very strong teeth and extra fermentation chambers
in their guts. However, while red pandas have large teeth, their guts
are not specialized to handle plant matter. In fact, red pandas only
extract about one quarter of the nutrients from bamboo, and food passes
through their digestive tract quite quickly. That means that many red
pandas lose as much as 15 percent of their body weight during the
winter, when their other preferred foods (such as insects) are not
readily available.
To cope with the lack of food during the winter months, red pandas
have evolved several ways of meeting their energy demands. For
instance, red pandas can spend as much as 13 hours a day looking for and
eating bamboo. They also have a very low metabolic rate (almost as low
as sloths), and can slow their metabolism even further in colder
temperatures. Finally, their thick fur covers their entire body,
including the soles of their feet, allowing them to conserve their body
heat.
(Image from Tambako the Jaguar on Flickr)
Habitat & Range
Red pandas have a large range that extends from western Nepal to
northern Myanmar. The species also lives throughout mountainous areas
of southwestern China (Yunnan, Sichuan and Xizang provinces) at
elevations between 4,900 and 13,000 feet.
Red pandas only live in temperate forests in the foothills of the
Himalayas. The temperature in this region is generally cool, and there
is little annual variation. The southern slopes of the mountains trap
the water from seasonal monsoons, supporting forests of firs, deciduous
hardwoods, and rhododendrons. A bamboo understory grows in these
forests and provides the bulk of the red panda’s diet. However, these
swaths of bamboo are only found in narrow bands throughout the red
panda’s range. Thus, although red pandas are distributed across
thousands of miles of territory, they are restricted to these small,
fragile areas because of their dependence on the bamboo plants.
(Photo by Red Panda Network)
Source: Red Panda: The Fire Cat by Miles Roberts (ZooGoer 21(2), 1992).
Population & Protections
Protecting the red panda goes hand in hand with protecting its habitat.
In the past, the dense root systems and undergrowth of Nepal’s forests
could be relied upon to retain moisture and slow water runoff.
Recently, however, logging and other forms of forest degradation have
upset this balance and sent rich soil cascading down mountainsides with
the annual monsoons. Many Nepalese people count on the red panda’s
habitat for their survival, and this problem cannot disappear on its
own. For example, Langtang National Park in Nepal is considered to be
an important area for red pandas, but 30,000 people live near the park
and depend on its resources. The reality is that these people are not
opposed to change. Rather, they lack viable economic alternatives. By
working directly with the people of the PIS Corridor, we aim to create a
new system in which conserving the red panda’s prime habitat will
actually benefit the surrounding communities.
The exact size of Asia’s red panda population is currently unknown,
but zoos around the world have taken up the call preserve the species.
More than 80 zoos currently have red pandas (
find out your nearest zoo here),
and almost all of them participate in a management program to ensure
the survival of a viable zoo population. In North America, the red
panda population management program is called the Red Panda Species
Survival Program (SSP). The SSP keeps a studbook of all red pandas on
the continent, determines which animals should be mated, and develops
long-term research and management strategies for the species. Other
management programs have been created in Japan, Europe, Australia, and
China.
(Image from FurryScaly on Flickr)
