Animals / giant-panda-nutritional-requirements
Facts about Giant Panda Nutritional Requirements
- 05
The giant panda's gut microbiome shifts seasonally to help extract more nutrients from bamboo shoots in spring versus woody stems in winter.
- 04
A giant panda's requirement for protein is largely met by selecting young bamboo shoots, which have significantly higher protein content than mature bamboo stems.
- 03
Giant pandas have an inefficient digestive system for processing plant matter, retaining only about 17 percent of the dry matter they consume from bamboo.
- 02
Bamboo is so low in nutrition that giant pandas must consume up to 40 pounds of it daily to meet their energy needs.
- 01
Despite being classified as carnivores, giant pandas derive nearly all their nutrition from bamboo, which makes up over 99 percent of their diet.