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PANDA
«BAMBOO BEAR»

Panda, or bamboo bear- mammal family Bear with a distinctive black and white coloring of wool, which has some of the attributes of raccoons. Giant pandas live in the mountainous regions of central China: Sichuan and Tibet. Since the second half of the XX century, the panda has become something of a national emblem of China.

WAY OF LIFE
Pandas are vegetarian. They eat generally young sprouts of a bamboo, from time to time including in a diet other plants, for example irises and a saffron, and even small mammals like rodents. Usually the animal eats sitting position of 10-12 h per day. It holds bamboo stalks in the thick pads and bites. For this purpose "the sixth finger" is useful for it: one bone was extended and works as a thumb at our hand. Thanks to it the finger can hold even the thinnest stalks of a bamboo.
They live highly in the mountain woods on cool slopes, because this is the best shelter for the birth of children in bamboo thickets. Pandas couple in the spring. Pregnancy lasts about 5 months, and they can have up to three cubs, but only one usually survives.

Life expectancy of pandas reaches 14 years. Young pandas are very playful. They are good-natured, they spend a lot of time in movement. They can stand on the head and hold a trunk head over heels, somersault through the head.

SMALL LEGEND ABOUT THE BIG PANDA
There is one Tibet legend about pandas. Once the girl meet a polar bear cub in the wood . They made friends and often played together. One day the bear was attacked by a snow leopard. The girl rushed to help the friend and she was lost. All pandas came to her funeral in black boots and black gloves. Crying, they rubbed their eyes by pads, clutched at the head. Therefore ears at pandas were painted in black color, and under eyes there were black circles.

The panda is an endangered species. Scientists assume that in the world there were about 1600 individuals. The big panda is a symbol of the World fund of the wild nature (WWF). Scientists try to rescue this black-and-white bear cub, and they disappear because of bad ecology and extinction of bamboo groves.

INTERESTING FACTS
Pandas are included in the Guinness Book of Records as most attractive of rare animals.
Genomes of the person and panda coincide for 68%.
Every day the panda is occupied more than 12 hours with food.
The panda has an unusual paw: besides usual 5 fingers it has the peculiar 6th "finger"