What do pandas eat?
Pandas have the digestive system of a carnivore and will eat meat if available, but adapted a long time ago to a vegetarian diet. Unlike their omnivorous bear cousins, pandas depend almost exclusively on bamboo as a food source. Unfortunately their digestive system doesn’t seem to have kept pace with the vegetarian adaptation. Not designed to process plant matter, the panda’s digestive system cannot easily break down cellulose, so pandas must eat enormous amounts of bamboo daily. Pandas eat as much as 19 kilos of bamboo and for as much as 14 hours a day. Luckily, the giant panda has the largest molars of any of the carnivores, and the panda’s forepaws have an extra “thumb,” which when used with “forefingers,” enable the panda to grasp even small bamboo shoots with precision.
