It’s not that pandas don’t like eating meat, but they lack opportunities. Because there are very few large carnivores in the giant panda's distribution area, there are not many carcasses left for the giant panda to eat. If it often catches small animals such as mice and rats, the nutrients it receives are often not enough to compensate for the energy it consumes.

As a result, giant pandas can only occasionally eat a little meat, and most of the time rely on bamboo to sustain their lives step by step, becoming an animal that lives by the rules and relies on bamboo throughout its life.

For example, there is a harmful rat called the bamboo rat, commonly known as "Bamboo Rat", which eats the underground roots of arrow bamboo and causes it to die. But its meat is tender, delicious and nutritious, just like a local saying goes: "Turtle doves in the sky, bamboo slips on the ground."

Giant pandas have a clever way to deal with bamboo rats. Once they smell its scent or find its traces, they can quickly find its cave, then blow into the hole with their mouths and use The front paws slapped hard, forcing the bamboo rat to flee in a hurry. The giant panda took the opportunity to jump up, hold it down with its front paws, tear off the rat's skin, and eat all its meat. If the bamboo rat does not come out of its hole, the giant panda will dig holes and ransack the house until it is captured. Extended information

Pandas prefer to eat bamboo and eat less meat

The fact that giant pandas eat bamboo is actually related to changes in their living environment. After the glacier attack, the remaining giant pandas in Sichuan and Gansu Only by gradually changing your eating habits can you survive. In the process of long-term adaptation to the environment, giant pandas changed from carnivorous to bamboo-eating, and their molars also became particularly wide, suitable for grinding bamboo fibers.

Giant pandas love to eat cold arrow bamboo, black bamboo, and water bamboo, especially bamboo shoots. They go to a certain place on time every year to eat bamboo shoots. It has a large appetite and eats about 20 kilograms of young bamboo every day to absorb nutrients from a large amount of fiber. Since it has to digest a large amount of fiber and lignin every day, it especially likes to drink water.

Of course, giant pandas occasionally eat other small animals. If they see a bamboo rat, they will slap it to death and then have a delicious meal. The daily life of giant pandas consists of eating and sleeping. When they wake up, they start eating again. Because bamboo has its own cycle of prosperity and decline, it blooms once every 50 to 60 years and then dies. At this time, the giant pandas are short of food and their lives are threatened.

Now our country has established a giant panda reserve, and has also organized large-scale rescue activities for giant pandas and carried out artificial breeding to make this "national treasure" last forever.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Giant Panda