Da Xiong Mao in Chinese means "Great Bear Cat". This bear-cat was mentioned in Chinese books dated over 3,000 years old. It was believed to be endowed with mystical powers capable of warding off natural disasters and evil spirits. Today, the giant pandas mainly live in the mountain ranges of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces of China. They have large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles. Their molars are broad and flat and adapted to crushing tough bamboo. However, their digestive system is still typical of a carnivore; only slightly adapted for processing bamboo. They are now listed as endangered in the World Conservation Union's (IUCN's) Red List of Threatened Animals. It is one of the most critically endangered species in the world. The giant panda has distinctive black fur on ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white, thick, and wooly. Unlike their cousin, the Lesser Pandas, which typically have brown colored fur, giant pandas in brown and white colors do exist, but very rare. While there are about less than 200 pandas live in zoos or breeding centers around the world, there are only about 1,000-2000 left in the wild, mostly in the bamboo forests of China. The giant panda has an average life span of about 25 when lives in the wild, but Chinese scientists have reported zoo pandas can live as old as 35. A wild giant panda’s diet is almost exclusively (99%) bamboo. The remaining 1% consists of other grasses and occasional small rodents or musk deer fawns. In zoos, however, giant pandas eat bamboo, sugar cane, rice gruel, a special high-fiber biscuit, carrots, apples, and sweet potatoes. The living habit of the panda is quite interesting. They rest for 43% of the time in a day, use 55% of the time for food, and only play for 2% of the time.

The Wolong Nature Reserve Center is a great place to visit when one tours Sichuan. Extensive research on pandas are conducted there. It also acts as a natural breeding site for the species. Studies have shown that the panda lives a solitary existence, meeting only occasionally with other pandas. Their short claws make them capable of climbing trees very easily. They do communicate through scent marks and calls, especially during the very brief mating season in late spring or early summer when several males would come together and compete for a female. New research from Shaanxi Province's Qinling Mountains now presents a different scenario. Far from living alone, it claims, pandas in Qinling live and travel in groups of at least two, and sometimes in groups of up to 28. Giant pandas generally move in a slow and determined manner. When startled, they will move at a slow trot to escape danger. Giant pandas have forepaws which are extremely flexible. Evolution has given them a enlarged wrist bone (the radial sesamoid) that works in the manner of an opposable thumb. This highly functional adaptation allows the giant panda to manipulate their primary food source, bamboo stems and leaves, with dexterity and precision. The hind feet of the giant panda lack the heel pad found in the other seven bear species. China is the only natural home of the giant panda, and Sichuan is by far the biggest of the three panda provinces in China. Both geologically as well as biologically, Sichuan is a magical place shrouded in mist and mystery. It's an area insulted from past geological and climatic upheavals by an almost complete ring of mountains. Sichuan became the natural breeding ground of the giant pandas and numerous other species found nowhere else on earth.

Evolution - The giant pandas are an important study in the evolution process. Their most recent ancestor was a bearlike creature. Like other bears, giant pandas are technically carnivores - members of the order Carnivora. But, in fact, most bears are omnivores - they will eat almost anything, including meat, fruit, seeds and insects. But at one stage in their evolutionary history, giant pandas abandoned omnivory in favor of strict herbivory - eating green vegetation only. Indeed, going a step farther than most herbivores, giant pandas even limited themselves to a single sort of grass - bamboo. Their adaptations for feeding on bamboo make them morphologically unique. In addition, their forepaws are equipped with a sixth "digit" that acts as a thumb for holding bamboo. This "thumb" is derived from the radial sesamoid bone of the wrist. The combined effect of foreshortened snout, round face, black eye rings, small rounded black ears, short squat tail, and distinctive body shape and markings gives the giant panda its characteristic infantile appearance, which is further enhanced by its habit of sitting upright, holding objects in its flexible forepaws, and walking pigeon-toed!