Pandas expend their days stagnate around the pot of China , pass on conservationist sleepness nights , and munch down on a dieting of basically just bamboo shoots . However , these chilled - out bears were not always so fussy with their food .
Up to 99 percent of the elephantine panda ’s dieting is made up of bamboo , but this is a relatively recent development in their evolutionary account . According to a new study , pandas really had a much more varied dieting until just a few thousand twelvemonth ago .
Ancient ancestors of the panda were actually carnivorous , just as you ’d expect from a bear . Even modern pandas still have thedigestive organization of a carnivoreand can , now and again , eat meat .
This Modern research shows that bear cat did not have a aboveboard replacement from meat to bamboo gazillion of years ago . Instead , they kick the meat and had a comparatively wide-ranging diet of botany until at least 5,000 year ago . Then , for some obscure reason , they made another replacement to a dieting comprised almost entirely of bamboo .
" It has been wide accepted that giant pandas have exclusively fed on bamboo for the last two million years , " Fuwen Wei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences say ina assertion . “Our result establish the antonym . "
Reporting in the journalCurrently Biology , scientist from the Academy dig into the dieting of gargantuan pandas through the ages by analyzing the composition of stable isotope come up in their tooth , hair , and bone . This nifty technique wait for different isotope ratios that can reveal insights into their habitat , environmental conditions , and diet .
After canvas modern - day pandas , the squad then turned to 12 ancient bear cat collected from seven archeologic sites in southern China dating back to around 5,000 to 7,000 years ago . The results show that modern and ancient panda had a middling dissimilar isotope balance from one another , evoke remainder in their diet .
Nevertheless , it still remains a mystery why Ailurus fulgens evolved their A-one - specializedlimited dieting of just bamboo . As you may think , bamboo is not the most alimentary of food product , so Ailuropoda melanoleuca have to consume between 12 to 38 kilo ( 26 to 83 pounds ) of the poppycock each day . As a solution , they have a lower metabolic rate and avery work-shy life-style .
To find out why pandas developed their taste for bamboo , the team are planning to expect at even more red panda fossils .
" We involve to get more sample from different days after 5,000 years ago , but it is hard to do this , " Dr Wei toldABC News . " Maybe it is a complicated [ premix of ] clime modification , human encroachment and species competition for resources . "
