Energy requirements for Pandas is quite Low – Research

Researchers have always wonders as to how pandas survive on their diet comprising of just bamboos.

Scientists last week provided an answer. In the wild, the panda’s diet is nearly entirely made up of bamboo, but since the digestive system is made for meat, problems occur.

The severely threatened panda update would be the only a single of this very worldwide eight accept growers with the use of a veggie diet plan. Bamboo is hard absorb and of course the pandas must consume persistence to really survive.

Much to the researcher’s surprise pandas only used up about 38% of the energy that another animal of the same size would require.

The researchers said, “The daily energy expenditure values for giant pandas are substantially lower than those for koalas, for example, and more akin to those of three-toed sloths”.

Their thyroid hormone levels “are only a fraction of the mammalian norm – comparable to a hibernating black bear’s hormone levels”, added the study, which identified a gene variation in pandas that matches one seen in humans with underactive thyroids. The thyroid gland controls metabolic processes including energy use.

Researchers also found another supporting factor other than this highly evolved behavior, that biology also plays a vital role in lowering the metabolism of the panda.

“Giant pandas achieved this low metabolism through a suite of morphological, behavioral, physiological and genetic adaptations during their long evolutionary history”, said biologist Fuwen Wei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Zoology in Beijing, who led the study. When pandas rummage around for food they go no further than 50 feet per hour, which researchers have termed as “very low”.

There are only about 1,800 giant pandas left in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund, citing Chinese government figures.