Shaanxi Foping National Nature Reserve Administration was conducting a survey on the survival status of giant panda populations, and a giant panda was found chewing on antelope bones. According to witnesses, the distance from the giant panda was less than 50 meters, and there was no bamboo forest around, but it was found that the giant panda was eating. After careful observation, it was found that the giant panda was holding a bone more than one foot long. After eating for about 10 minutes, the giant panda threw down its bones, walked slowly into the forest, and climbed onto a tree.
The next morning, when the patrol went up the mountain again, he found the feces of this giant panda. Compared with the common giant panda feces, the color of this feces is obviously whiter, which is the color of the calcium in the bones.
In fact, this is not the first time that a giant panda has been discovered to eat meat. The staff have collected feces from giant pandas that eat meat. The feces contain incompletely digested animal remains and hair.
In our understanding, the ancestors of giant pandas were carnivorous animals, but in their evolution they lost the genes that perceive umami flavor, and from then on they could only feed on bamboo . So this time people observed that giant pandas eat meat means that giant pandas will wake up their genes when they eat meat?
In fact, judging from the evolution of giant pandas, the reason why giant pandas eat vegetarian food is not just because they lose the gene that perceives umami taste, but because they are forced to do so. The intestines of giant pandas are actually more suitable for feeding on meat.
giant panda
According to current research, the ancestor of giant pandas was primordial panda . Unlike giant pandas, primordial pandas mainly feed on meat, and their teeth and claws are relatively sharp.
About 3 million years ago, the small-sized giant pandas began to appear. At this time, they evolved into omnivorous animals, both able to eat meat and began to feed on bamboo. In other words, they have a very long history of eating bamboo.
small-sperm giant panda is not weak, and even became the top of the food chain together with saber-toothed tiger at that time. However, the good times did not last long. By the late period of the renewal period, the earth gradually entered the ice age. , the ice age, and caused many areas around the world to be covered with ice and snow. Some animals that could not adapt to the ice age environment were extinct, but giant pandas found survival strategies to adapt to the ice age.
The first thing to know is that although the ice age will cause most parts of the world to be covered with ice and snow, some places are still relatively warm due to factors such as latitude, terrain, altitude, and have become shelter for animals. The Qinling where giant pandas live is such a shelter.
Secondly, the ice age caused a large number of animals to die, and the competition for surviving species was so fierce that giant pandas could not sustain themselves by relying on meat. In addition, predation consumed a lot of energy, and relying solely on hunting was likely to be unable to make ends meet, so giant pandas embarked on the road of feeding on bamboo.
There are very obvious benefits to feeding on bamboo. On the one hand, it is because no other animals eat bamboo, and the competition is not fierce. On the other hand, the bamboo is a large grass with enough quantity and is germinated every year. Moreover, giant pandas lose their genes that perceive umami flavor during their evolution and do not have to feed on meat.
However, there are also bad things about feeding on bamboo. Although the taste of giant pandas has changed, their intestinal structure is still carnivorous.
In order to eliminate pathogens in meat, carnivorous animals will evolve stronger gastric acid; at the same time, the intestine length of carnivorous animals is short, so that meat food will not stay in the body for a long time.
herbivores are different. The nutrient content in plants is low and rich in a variety of indigested cellulose. In order to obtain nutrition from food as much as possible, herbivores have evolved a way of coexisting with microorganisms . For example, there is rumen in the cow's stomach, and there are a large number of microorganisms in the rumen. These microorganisms can decompose plants, and the decomposed products will be absorbed by the cow's stomach again.In order to allow the microorganisms in the stomach to survive in the body, the stomach acid of herbivores is weaker,
In addition, the plant nutrition content is low, and herbivores have evolved a longer intestine in order to squeeze the nutrition of each bite of food.
Giant pandas have high stomach acid and short intestines, which are obviously not suitable for feeding on plants, so they have very low utilization rate of food. You can even see the shape of bamboo poles and bamboo leaves from their feces.
Since giant pandas cannot obtain enough nutrients from bamboo, they must save energy, so they walk slowly every day, spend about 14 hours on eating, and the rest of their time on sleep. Fortunately, the giant pandas live in enough bamboo, and they can eat without long walks; and the giant pandas are large in size and have no natural enemies to threaten them, and they do not have to run for a long time to avoid natural enemies, so the giant pandas have survived to this survival strategy.
As for why giant pandas eat the bones of antelope, it can only be said that giant pandas are not actually opposed to eating meat. When a free lunch is placed in front of them, they don’t mind improving their food.
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