Although giant pandas prefer to eat bamboo, they don't eat any kind of bamboo indiscriminately. They will choose different parts of bamboo to eat. Newly grown bamboo shoots and leaves are the favorite of giant pandas because they can be well digested by the intestines. The intestines of giant pandas are very short, which accords with the characteristics of carnivores. The small intestine is only about one meter, and the large intestine is less than one foot. Moreover, the giant panda has no cecum, which obviously did not evolve from vegetarian diet.
However, although the intestine is short, the giant panda has evolved other ways to digest bamboo, such as increasing the number and length of intestinal villi and the number of glands, which can expand the absorption area and increase the secretion. If there is a lot of liquid, you can wrap bamboo with mucus, so that bamboo can no longer prick people, and bamboo can be wrapped into feces smoothly. But also improves the repairing ability of intestinal villi.
Habitat environment of giant pandas:
Giant pandas live in the high mountains and deep valleys in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in China, which is the windward side of the southeast monsoon. The climate is warm, cool and humid, and its humidity is often above 80%. They are wet animals. Giant pandas are distributed in Minshan, Qionglai, Liangshan, Daxiangling, Xiaoxiangling and Qinling, spanning 45 counties (cities) in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, with a habitat area of more than 20,000 square kilometers and a population of about 1600, of which more than 80% are distributed in Sichuan.
Their active areas are mostly in ravines, mountainside depressions, river valley terraces and so on. , generally in the gentle slope terrain below 20. These places have lush forests, good bamboo growth, relatively stable temperature, good hidden conditions and abundant food and water resources.