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Giant pandas live only in Southwest China. These mountain areas have the cool, damp conditions that bamboo forests need to grow best in. Because pandas eat so much bamboo, it makes sense that this is where they would live. The panda's scientific name is Aailuropoda melanoleuca. |
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Pandas are black and white. They usually have black ears
and black circles around the eyes. They have black shoulders, chests,
arms and legs. The rest of them is white. They do not blend in with their
surroundings very well because their coloring makes it easy to spot them
in the wild. Click the icon to see a panda eating bamboo. |
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This panda is climbing up a tree. Can you see how straight it can make its body? It almost looks like a person standing up. Its sharp claws help it to climb.
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Pandas are good tree climbers. This panda looks very comfortable up in this tree.
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A baby cub weighs about 4 ounces or the same as a stick of butter while the mother weighs about 220 pounds or 880 sticks of butter. This picture shows the difference in their sizes. next |
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Here is a real photograph of a panda cub. Its eyes are not fully developed yet. It has fine hairs on its body. It fits into the palm of this hand. How tiny it is! |
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Panda mothers give their cubs a lot of love and attention just like human mothers and fathers do. They hold their cubs nearly all the time. This cub is only a few weeks old and has not gotten all its fur yet. It must be very warm and snuggly in its mother's soft, furry arms. next |
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This mom and baby are lying down taking a rest. This four-week old cub is still very tiny but as you see, its fur and coloring look a lot more like a panda now. next |
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Even when their cubs get a little older, mother pandas hug and love their cubs. Before you know it, it'll be too big to sit on mommy's lap. When it gets to be 6 months old, it will start eating bamboo. At one year old, it will be 90 pounds. At two years old or 220-300 pounds, it will leave home to live on its own. next |
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This is the underneath side of a panda's paw. It has five toes and a thumb that is not really a thumb at all. It is a pad along the side of its wristbone. It wraps its toes around the stems and presses them to its thumb pad to grip the bamboo stems when it eats. next |
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Bamboo is a kind of giant grass that grows up to 10 feet tall. Pandas eat 35 to 75 pounds of bamboo stems and leaves every day. Sometimes they will eat meat but most of the time they just eat bamboo. They eat for 14 to 16 hours every day. next |
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CD-Roms, and videos. |
