March 11, 2022 8:00 a.m.. Image of a red panda, a racoon-like animal, looking at camera Red pandas are classified as endangered ...
“One of the most charming sorts of play behavior I've ever seen is red panda young playing with their parents,” says Glatston. “They raise up on their hind legs, and put their front paws up, and then they will pounce on one of their parents. Their nose is their only feature exposed to the elements—even the bottoms of their feet have an insulating layer of fur. The first few weeks of a red panda’s life are a challenge. To alert other pandas to their presence, males mark territory with scent glands on their feet and at the base of their tail. Like giant pandas, red panda females are fertile for only one or two days a year and can delay implantation of a fertilized egg for weeks. Because they retained the digestive system of a carnivore, a red panda has to eat 20 to 30 percent of their body weight in bamboo each day. Some animals are taken from the wild to be kept as pets (despite making terrible houseguests, according to experts) and others are killed for their fur. Western scientists described red pandas 50 years before giant pandas, and named the black-and-white bear after the smaller red panda because of their shared characteristics, like a taste for bamboo and a bonus digit called a pseudothumb. Those that have survived in the wild are often confined to pockets of intact forest. Red pandas also have black fur on their belly and legs, which helps them hide from predators like snow leopards against the dark foliage. They also use their bushy tails, which are marked with alternating red and buff rings, as ballasts to maintain balance. That makes red pandas the only “true” panda.
The diminutive red panda is now the star of its own film. But what does it have in common with its bigger namesake – and are either of them related to bears ...
The giant panda looks like a black bear in a costume; the red panda looks like a racoon that's gone rusty. Complete with a resplendent, ringed tail, cheese-wedge ears and pointed snout, the red panda is thoroughly cute – but in a way that's thoroughly unlike the other creature with which it shares the ‘p’ word. There are in fact two distinct species that share this iconic name: The giant panda, and the red panda.