09.08.2020 Animal Of the Week: Giant Panda

Hi!

Today's animal of the week is the Giant Panda! These are fascinating creatures so enjoy!

Habitat:

Sadly, The only remaining giant panda habitat is on the eastern edge of west China. Giant pandas normally live in bamboo forests.

Diet:

A Giant Panda's diet consists of mainly bamboo stems and leaves. However, they occasionally consume other plants and even meat. Although they are very slow and so target injured rodents and other small creatures. As bamboo has little nutritional value, a Giant Panda needs to eat 23-40 kg of it a day.

Dangers:

Giant Pandas are currently classed as 'vulnerable' after a re-surge in numbers in 2016. This means we still need to protect them but the work organisations have already been doing has paid off. Back in the 1980s, only 1 114 Giant Pandas were left in the wild, but in the most recent survey in 2014, an estimated 1 864 Giant Pandas lived in the wild.

The cause of this is excessive poaching back in the 1980s and 90s and deforestation meaning they cannot get any bamboo, which as I have already said, makes up the vast majority of their diet.

The situation is improving, but the work is not over yet as there are still very few giant pandas and we need to continue supporting groups such as WWF who have done so much work and yet warn that climate change could impact the panda population further. You can adopt a panda on WWF's website to support their charity.

Please feel free to email subscribers so you know when we publish something you find interesting! If you have any ideas on what posts you want to see in the future then make sure to put them in the comments!

Thank you!

Images:
Close-Up Shot of a Panda Bear on a Tree Branch is owned by .M.Q Huang on pexels.com.
Close-Up Shot of a Panda Bear is owned by .M.Q Huang on pexels.com.

Sources:
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/giant-panda
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/giant-panda

Comments

The life of ... an alcon blue butterfly

Hi everyone, Today we are going to be looking into the life of an alcon blue butterfly (Phengaris alcon). After mating, the females lay their eggs on marsh gentian, a blue-coloured wildflower. The eggs can only be laid on these flowers, as this is what the newly hatched caterpillars will eat. Although in some alp regions, they can also be found on willow gentians, a close relative of the marsh gentian. Once the caterpillars have hatched from the eggs, their main predator and danger are the ants that swarm below. But high on their plant homes, the caterpillars are safe. However, this isn't where the alcon blue caterpillars are going to stay forever. Eventually, they drop down to the ground using silk strings. With no protection, they are soon dragged off by the ants. The most amazing part is, the alcon blue caterpillars give off the same scent and chemicals as the ant larvae. So the ants take the caterpillars back to their brood chamber, wher...

August 2021 Factfile - some news, animals and a plant

Welcome to our August factfile, News Bad news :( Fires in and around Athens Athens has been under siege this month, but not by any army. The forests all around the capital and in other parts of Greece and Turkey have gone up in flames. Houses have been destroyed and thousands have been evacuated. The reason is, of course, climate change . “It’s been crazy over here. Between the extreme heat and the wildfires, it feels apocalyptic,” Eleni Myrivili wrote in an email on Thursday as the army was deployed to assist firefighters. “Ash is raining down on us here in Athens.” England's lake district in peril Lake District, a popular holiday resort in the north of England, is now eroding faster as a result of climate change and an increased amount of walkers due to the pandemic. Paths that were once two meters wide are now at least 12 meters wide on some walks. Also visitors tend to walk off the path, endangering local wildlife. With...

January Top Tips // 5 ways you can individually tackle climate change

Hi Everyone! This is the first of our new monthly posts for 2022! We will be sharing top tips every month, near the beginning, for things you can do during that month for the better. It's almost like a whole year of new year's resolutions (though let's hope they are achieved)! In these posts, we aren't just going to talk about climate change , of course, there will also be posts about animals , plants, habitats, plastic pollution and so much more! They will not be huge tips though, they won't demand too much of you (usually!). We need rebellions and people in the public eye spreading the word of course but we also need people like you, who can just do their bit. So, welcome to our top tips posts! We all know that we need to come together to fight the climate crisis, but we don't seem to be doing that right now. So here are our top tips for ways you can individually tackle climate change, even if this means simply spreading ...

Palm Oil

Hi everyone, Today we would like to share with you some information about palm oil. With all the focus on climate change and plastic pollution, not many people are acting against the use of palm oil. Workers First of all, the managers promise that the workers will have good money, but when they arrive, their passports are taken from them, therefore, meaning they are trapped. Soon they find out that they aren't paid as well as promised. They have to work long hours with no breaks, maternity leave or sick days. Some people have to spray pesticides with leaking cans and no safety gear, meaning they become ill but are still forced to work. Deforestation Many animals are losing their home because the trees are chopped down to make room for the palm trees. they are now facing extinction. Also, trees helped to slow down climate change, but without them, climate change speeds up. So this is a big problem. Help your planet! Image:...

Discussion || Should Everyone Switch To Electric Cars?

Hi Everyone! Thank you so much for joining me today, as I hop on the blog to discuss whether everyone switching to electric cars would really help the environment. In other words, should everyone switch to electric cars? This is the first part of a two-part series, discussing electric cars, so stay tuned for part two!! I would like to start this post by stating that I am by no means an expert. This is knowledge I have from my own experience, and from research I have done. If anything is incorrect please take it as it is and accept that this is a discussion and I am taking on board all opinions from reliable sources on this complex topic. Electric cars are a huge topic when it comes to sustainability and "saving our planet". There is no debating the fact that electric cars are better for the environment than diesel or petrol once they are on the road. But the production of them is often very polluting, with one study show...

Pollination

Hello everyone, Today we're talking about pollination and its importance in the world's ecosystems. First a bit of basic plant biology. To reproduce most plants do have a differentiation into male and female, but not in the same way that we see in mammals. Both male and female reproductive organs can be found on the same plant, although not in the same place. Male gametes are produced in the stamens and are then found in pollen. On the other hand, female reproductive organs are called pistils and egg cells are found in the ovule (normally in the flower heads). Pollination describes the process of transporting the pollen to the egg cells, making it an essential part of the reproduction of plants. Nearly all seed plants worldwide require pollination to reproduce. Cone bearing trees also need pollination. Pollination is almost always assisted by other organisms such as insects, birds and mammals to transport the pollen. In some species wind ...

The limits of the Earth - the planetary boundary model

Hi everyone, So today we're talking about a model that was introduced in 2009 and has offered a new perspective to thinking about environmental issues. The planetary boundary model has 9 boundaries, each has a safe zone. Once the safe zone is exceeded, the stable conditions on our planet are considered at risk, and there can be severe and possibly irreversible changes. The nine boundaries are considered separate however, they greatly affect each other. Novel Entities describes the introduction and accumulation of man-made novel chemical compounds. These include pesticides, nuclear waste and microplastics. Stratospheric Ozone Depletion refers to the depletion of the ozone layer which was a major problem in the 90s. Atmospheric Aerosol Loading is air particle pollution. Ocean Acidification is self-explanatory. The boundary Biochemical Flows is composed of two separate boundaries; nitrogen and phosphorus. Both of the ele...

The life of ... a cicada

Hi everyone, We're back to talk about another animal. Cicadas ( Cicadoidea ) are invertebrates and are 1.9cm to 5.7cm in size. There are 3 000 species that can be divided into annual cicadas and periodical cicadas. Annual cicadas can be seen annually and are found worldwide whereas periodical cicadas only leave the ground every decade or two and are only found in North America with hotspots in the eastern and central areas of the United States. Most annual cicadas have a lifespan of about two to five years and periodical cicadas can live up to the age of 17. Female cicadas lay around 400 eggs split up over several places. They normally lay their eggs on twigs, branches or other vegetation. The eggs hatch after about six to ten weeks, now known as nymphs, and dig their way into the soil. The nymphs feed on the liquids found in plant roots. They fully develop underground, before molting their shells and coming to the surface, now fully deve...

Turning waste into valuables

Hi, So this post was requested on Twitter after our September Top Tips about recycling . Today we will be talking about how to turn complete waste into something reasonably valuable. This is basically a form of upcycling but to a more extreme level. 1. Ecobricks So, almost a year ago we did a post about ecobricks , but they are such a good example of turning waste into valuables that we decided to put it here anyway. Ecobricks are a building material made from plastic. The waste plastic is washed and then compacted into a clean plastic bottle (also waste). The bottle becomes very hard and durable. Multiple bottles can then be used as bricks and cemented together. The 'bricks' are strong and do not decompose. For more info, read our post where we go into more detail. 2. Metals Although this may seem like something not worth the time. When you separate the metals in waste (for example an old car), you can get usable metal out ...

Energy comparison: solar (PV) panels

Hi everyone, Today I'm looking into the first on a long list of energy sources: solar (PV) panels. Are they actually sustainable and could they become our main energy source in the near future? After all, enough energy from the sun reaches the earth in 90 minutes to cover the entire world's energy consumption for a whole year! How they work There are a couple of ways to transform energy from the sun into electricity. The one we are looking at today is solar panels also known as solar photovoltaic technology. Photovoltaic (PV) technology is the key to solar panels. A solar panel is made of many PV cells. A single PV cell will produce 1-2 watts of power. They are very thin and are normally protected by glass and/or plastics. This is the best explanation I could find (click here for the source): When the semiconductor is exposed to light, it absorbs the light’s energy and transfers it to negatively charged particles in the material calle...

Green World

Search This Blog