Red Pandas

[00:00:00] Alex Re: Hello, welcome to On Wildlife. I'm your host, Alex Re. On this podcast, we bring the wild to you. We take you on a journey into the life of a different animal every month, and I guarantee you, you're gonna come out of here knowing more about your favorite animal than you did before. In this episode, we're covering a mammal that's an expert at living in the trees.

[00:00:22] They share a name with a much more well known animal, but if you've ever seen one of these guys, you know, they're just as adorable. So join me as we navigate through the bamboo forests high up in the mountains to talk about red pandas.

[00:00:49] The red pandas scientific name is Ailurus fulgens, and despite their name, they're actually not closely related to the black and white giant pandas that we all know and love. Giant Pandas belong to the Ursidae family, which includes all bear species, while the red panda belongs to the Ailuridae family, and they're actually the only living members of this family as all of the other Ailuridae species went extinct over 3 million years ago.

[00:01:17] And what's really interesting is that the Red Panda got its name first with the giant panda getting its name because of certain characteristics that it shares with the red panda. So red pandas are the real pandas. Even though giant pandas are more well known, it's thought that the word panda comes from the Nepali word poya, which means bamboo eating animal.

[00:01:38] We'll talk more about their diet later. You'll notice that red pandas look kind of like raccoons. They have a bushy tail with rings around it, pointy ears and markings around their eyes. The markings are thought to be completely unique to each individual. And red Pandas use these markings to tell each other apart.

[00:01:57] And for a while, scientists classified them in the same family as raccoons, but with the use of DNA analysis, they found that they belong in their own category. Unlike raccoons, red pandas have red fur along their backs and tails with a black underside and white ears. They're also around the size of your average cat weighing around eight to 13 pounds, so they're nowhere near the size of giant pandas, which can weigh more than 250 pounds.

[00:02:27] So if you're doing the math about 25 red pandas weigh the same as one giant panda. There are two species of red panda, the Himalayan red Panda and the Chinese red panda. The main difference between the two being the markings on their faces and where they live. Red pandas can only be found in Asia with most of their habitat being in the Himalayan mountain range.

[00:02:52] Himalayan red pandas can be found in India, Nepal and Bhutan while Chinese red pandas are found in China and Myanmar. Almost all red pandas live in high elevation. Mountain ranges between 70 812,000 feet in altitude, and their habitats are temperate bamboo forests. These areas tend to be at around temperatures of 50 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:03:17] If it gets much warmer than that, red pandas aren't able to tolerate it. Thermo regulation, which is a fancy way to say, maintaining a stable body temperature is an important part of a red panda's life. Sometimes it can get below freezing in their habitat. That thick layer of fur helps to keep them warm, and during those cold months, they'll sleep tightly curled up in a ball to conserve body heat.

[00:03:40] They'll also use their bushy tail as a pillow, and similar to some other mammals that we've covered on this podcast that live in cold environments, like polar bears, red pandas have fur on the bottom of their feet instead of toe pads. This helps them step on cold surfaces with an added layer of cold protection.

[00:03:59] Once it gets hotter, red pandas will sleep more sprawled out to release heat. These are just some of the things that are so cool about these animals. We're gonna take a quick break and when we get back we'll talk about red Panda's main food source, bamboo.

[00:04:26] This week I wanna recognize two listeners who suggested that I do an episode on Red Pandas. Eva from Singapore and Kayla from Pennsylvania. Thank you both so much for the suggestion. I love hearing from anyone who listens to the show, so I encourage you to reach out and let me know your favorite animals and what animals you want to hear me talk about.

[00:04:46] You can always shoot us an email at On Wildlife dot [email protected]. Also, if you wanna support the show, you should check out our Patreon at patreon.com/on wildlife. For just a couple of dollars a month you can get exclusive access to on wildlife content. Okay, back to the episode. Just like the giant panda, the red pandas diet mainly consists of bamboo, but red pandas are much more selective of which part of the bamboo they eat.

[00:05:16] Giant pandas will eat the entire bamboo stalk, but red pandas really only eat the leaf tips. They don't really have the bite force to chew on the woody part of bamboo. But the leaves are much more nutritious. Anyways, to chew on these leaves, they have flattened molars that have specialized structures for breaking them down.

[00:05:36] And bamboo isn't the most ideal diet because it's hard to digest. Less than 25% of the bamboo that red pan does eat. Is actually digested, so that means they have to spend a lot of time eating about half of the entire time that they're awake. In order to grab the bamboo stalks, they have a modified wrist bone that acts as a thumb.

[00:05:58] This is a characteristic that they also share with giant pandas and red pandas will eat around 30% of their body weight per day. Now even though 90% of what they eat is bamboo, they've also been known to eat insects, fruits, and even birds, but they're not at the top of the food chain in their ecosystems.

[00:06:18] Their main predators are leopards. But Martins have also been known to prey on red pandas to avoid them. Red pandas spend the majority of their lives in trees, and the word you'd use to describe them is arboreal. And red pandas are built for climbing. They have claws that help them grip tightly onto trees, and their large tails are excellent at helping maintain their balance.

[00:06:43] Think of it like a tightrope walker with a long pole. They use it to counter their weight so they don't fall off. They can also jump from branch to branch almost five feet across, and when they climb down trees, they usually climb down headfirst. This might not seem like a big deal, but red pandas are basically able to rotate their ankle bones 180 degrees in order to do this.

[00:07:07] Predator avoidance is also most likely the main reason why red pandas are red. The moss and fungi in their environment comes in shades of red, which help the red panda blend in really well. You may have also seen red pandas standing on their hind legs with their front paws in the air. This is another predator void in strategy.

[00:07:28] They do this when they feel threatened to make themselves appear larger than they are usually. They'll also make some vocalizations like hisses and jaw clicks to go along with this posture. Red pandas are solitary animals except for when it comes time to mate. They only breed once a year, usually sometime between January and March.

[00:07:49] Scientists believe that the amount of sunlight during the day determines when they start getting ready to m mate. Once the days start to become longer, that's when red pandas begin mating. And mating is one of the few times that they come down from the trees onto the ground. Males will court the females for multiple hours trying to win her over, and this is when we can see how they communicate with each other.

[00:08:12] Males and females both use vocalizations like squeaks and chirps, as well as odor from their scent glands located under their paws. Their scent can convey information about themselves to other red pandas, but interestingly, it's completely odorless to humans. And red Pandas don't only use their nose to pick up the scent.

[00:08:33] They also use their tongue underneath their tongue. They have a structure that lets them pick up liquids. They'll touch the scent gland secretions with this structure, which then allows them to process the information that the scent gave off. Before the female gives birth, she'll build a nest, most likely in a tree hole or under the cover of its roots.

[00:08:55] She lines a layer of plant matter, like leaves and moss on the ground, and the female does all this by herself. The male doesn't help at all with the rearing of the offspring, and these nests are extremely important as red pandas are born completely helpless, needing the protection and care of their mother.

[00:09:15] The female usually gives birth to two offspring around the late spring and early summer months. The Cubs are born blind and deaf and only weigh about three ounces, which is like the weight of a deck of cards. These offspring do have a layer of gray fur that helps to keep them warm though. So for the first three months, the mother spends most of her time with the cubs and provides milk for them with no solid food.

[00:09:41] The mother will also chew up bamboo leaves for them to eat. Sometimes she'll move them to a new nest during this time, and in order to transport them, she picks them up in her mouth. And although this may sound a little gross to us, the female will eat all of the waste that the Cubs produce in the nest to make sure that the Nest stays disease free.

[00:10:00] Cubs can start to hear and see a little over two weeks after they're born, but they don't leave their mother until they're around a year old. So now that we know all about the Red Panda lifecycle, let's take our last break. Then we will talk about what's going on with Red Panda conservation

[00:10:27] time for today's trivia question. What is the heaviest snake species in the world?

[00:10:39] The answer is the green anaconda. They can weigh over 550 pounds. Okay, we're back. Unfortunately, red pandas are marked as endangered on the IUCN Red list. There are only about 10,000 adults left in the wild, and from 1995 to 2015, scientists believed that their population dropped more than 50%. This is mainly due to human caused impacts like habitat loss, poaching, and the wildlife trade.

[00:11:10] As the human population increases, more and more space is being taken away from these animals and not just because people are trying to live there. One of the largest causes of habitat loss for red pandas is livestock herding. We need to keep producing more and more food for our growing population, which means a lot of the red pandas habitat is being cut down to create space for livestock.

[00:11:34] One of our food sources plus a lot of livestock herds use dogs to keep the livestock from escaping. Dogs aren't native to the red pandas environment, so they can introduce disease to red pandas that they're not built to handle. They can also attack them in some cases. On top of that, you have poachers that hunt red pandas for their fur, as well as the illegal pet trade where red pandas will be caught from the wild and sold as pets, although they look adorable.

[00:12:01] Red pandas are wild animals. They don't belong in someone's house like a cat or a dog. Unfortunately, with the global reach of the internet, the demand for illegal pets has actually increased. So if you see someone online who has a red panda as a pet in their house, do not support them. You can actually report them and have their account taken down.

[00:12:23] And this goes for any animal that isn't supposed to be kept as a pet. Without red pandas, their ecosystem and all other animals inside of it could be in danger. Red Pandas help keep bamboo forests healthy by eating tons of bamboo leaves. They're also a prey species for some of the most vulnerable animals on our planet.

[00:12:44] In order to help red Pandas, there are a few organizations that have put initiatives in place that you should support. For example, the Red Panda Network has built anti-poaching networks that go through red Panda habitats to scare off poachers and take away any traps that poachers have set. Some other organizations that are making a difference in red panda habitat conservation that you can take a look at are Rainforest Trust and Asia Wild.

[00:13:12] Thank you so much for coming on this adventure with me as we explored the world of red pandas. You can find the sources that we use for this podcast. And links to organizations that we reference at onwildlife.org. You can also email us with any questions at [email protected], and you could follow us on Instagram at @on_wildlife, or on TikTok at @onwildlife.

[00:13:37] And don't forget to tune in next month for another awesome episode. And that's on wildlife.