Although Winter Olympics has ended, the mascot " Bingdun ", based on the "national treasure" giant panda, is still popular, and peripheral products have been sold out in minutes after they have been put on the shelves many times.
Speaking of which, "Bingdundun" is popular mainly because it is a panda image. After all, as a unique species in our country, giant pandas have many fans from different countries in the world. For example, Japan came to Beijing to interview the reporter of the Winter Olympics. When they parted, they were about to cry because they couldn't bear to "Bingdundun".
Judging from the research on giant pandas, this species is really amazing. At least 8 million years ago, giant pandas lived in the region. You should know that at that time, human ancestors had not yet appeared, so giant pandas were also called "living fossils" in nature.
And from the perspective of distribution, their habitats have always been very narrow, mainly concentrated in dense bamboo forests at high altitudes in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu, my country. You should know that under normal circumstances, it is often difficult for such species with narrow habitats to survive in nature for so long.
What's more, giant pandas are still "vegetarian" because their main food source is various bamboo . So, do giant pandas have natural enemies in the wild? Why never see tigers eating it?
Why don’t tigers eat giant pandas?
First of all, although giant pandas eat bamboo, they are carnivorous animals, because in ancient times, early giant pandas eat meat, and later it was because of genetic mutations that caused them to give up eating meat.
Nowadays, although artificially bred giant pandas eat bamboo, wild giant pandas are also photographed eating meat in the wild, and there are quite a few. For example, in November last year, a wild giant panda was photographed gnawing on the bones of antelope in Shaanxi, my country.
Moreover, in recent years, research on wild giant pandas has also found that many wild giant panda feces contain undiluted animal remains. This also means that in the wild environment, wild giant pandas still retain the nature of "eating meat", but compared to eating meat, they prefer to eat bamboo.
This also means that although giant pandas look very cute, in fact, this animal is also a beast. Moreover, species that appeared in the same era as giant pandas are generally extinct, but giant pandas can survive to this day. All these means that giant pandas are strong people in nature and have strong survival advantages.
So, it is also a very difficult thing for tigers to eat giant pandas. After all, giant pandas are also very fierce and aggressive animals. When these two animals come together, they may even eat whoever. Naturally, tigers cannot eat giant pandas.
Secondly, in nature, any species eats another species, there is a necessary prerequisite, that is, the habitats of these two species overlap, but the habitats of giant pandas and tigers do not overlap.
Of course, tigers have existed in the mountains and forests around Sichuan and Shaanxi, for example, South China tiger and Qinling tiger . However, they have long been extinct. And even though they have survived to this day, in terms of body size and bite strength, they are still half a pound with wild giant pandas. It is not a question that wild giant pandas are eaten by tigers.
What's more, there are no tigers in the habitat of wild giant pandas nowadays. It can even be said that there are few carnivores, so how can tigers eat giant pandas?
So, are giant pandas really not natural enemies?
First of all, it is certain that artificially bred giant pandas are kept as treasures in captivity and have absolutely no natural enemies. However, the situation of wild giant pandas living alone in the wild is different.
From the perspective of the habitat range of wild giant pandas, the animals that overlap with their habitat are snow leopard , wolves, jackals, and leopard , etc. However, because the number of snow leopards and leopards is very small, and their main food sources are all kinds of ungulate animals, in fact, they do not have any threat to wild giant pandas.
Here, it is important to mention jackals, because jackals are group animals. Data shows that in the wild, underage wild giant pandas can be preyed by jackal groups. In addition, there are records about jackal groups attacking adult giant pandas, which means that jackals, which seem to be "African wild dogs", are the main natural enemies of wild giant pandas.
However, jackals are now in my country, and are also a national first-class protected animal in . Therefore, there is also a problem here, that is, if a group of jackals attack wild giant pandas in the wild, should humans stand by or intervene? When wild giant pandas encounter danger, should they intervene? What do you think about this? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to share with us!
