FACTS ABOUT HOPE
Giant Pandas have a lot in common with people who have any form of Digestive Tract Paralysis. Here are some facts:
Giant Pandas:
Are endangered
Digest only 17% of what they eat (bamboo). Most of what pandas eat is useless bulk that passes through their digestive systems without providing nutrition.
Intestines are 5-7 times the length of their bodies
Must spend as much as 14-16 hours a day eating to get enough nutrition
Are barely able to eat enough food to get all the calories they need so they have little energy to spare
Are about the size of a stick of butter at birth
Have an extra digit to help grab bamboo. It looks like a thumb, but it is part of the wrist bone
Bamboo, their main food source, is primarily made up of fiber and has very little useful nutrition
Have molars 5x the size of human molars
Sleep about 10-14 hours a day
Babies do not open eyes until about six weeks old
It takes so much energy for them to eat so they need to sleep a lot
About 50 Giant Pandas weigh as much as one elephant
They can trot like horses and swim
They have poor eyesight and may walk right past their food
Some snore!
They are not predators
Newborns can fit into the palm of a human hand
They are born pink with little fur
As you can see, a number of those facts make the Giant Panda great to represent DTP! We have a lot in common! Can you relate to any?
Here are some other interesting facts about Giant Pandas:
They are Omnivores
Genus/species name is ailuropoda melanoleuca
They eat with their back legs stretched in front of them using their forepaw so to hold their food. The extra digit helps!
They tend to be solitary
They have slightly oily hair on the bottom of their feet to keep them dry in their damp habitat
They communicate by leaving their scents and claw markings on trees
They have scent glands under their short, bulky tails
Their scent markings leave info including age, gender, and identity
They have a vemeronasal organ behind their teeth which help them interpret smells
Share features of a cat such as slit-shaped pupils in their eyes and pads on their paws. Their Chinese name is daxiongmao meaning "large bear cat"
For every six million people in the world, there is 1 giant panda
Sometimes they eat flowers, berries, small animals, or fish, but bamboo is 95% of their diet
Their esophagus' have a tough lining to protect it from bamboo splinters
Their stomachs have strong muscles for mashing and digesting bamboo (what we HOPE for!)