Food:

Giant Pandas eat young bamboo shoots or bamboo where it is still growing so it is tender for them to eat. If it is a young bamboo shoot the pandas will eat all of it including the leaves and stems.

Pandas can't change food into energy very easily and because of that they have to eat a lot, like 85 pounds a day.

Ninety-nine percent of the time when they eat they eat bamboo. The remaining one percent of the time they eat small rodents or any other plants, like flowers.

Another cool thing is that they have that opposable thumb and the giant panda uses it to hold on to bamboo like when we hold on to sticks. Pandas eat sitting down with their legs spread out.

Parenting:

A female panda gives birth once or twice every two years to one or two cubs. When born, cubs are very small and weigh about 5 ounces. The mother will then decide between the two cubs which is stronger and let the weaker one die. The remaining cub will stay with its mother for three years before going out on its own. The mother would have to eat between two hundred and three hundred pounds of food in order to produce enough milk for their cub.

Habitat:

Giant Pandas live in high climate bamboo forests on mountain slopes in western and southwestern China.

Giant panda territories range from about 3.9 to 6.4 square kilometers. A male giant panda's territory is usually larger, and over laps several female territories.

Lifestyle:

Giant pandas are solitary creatures and like to be left alone. They don't usually socialize with other pandas other than during the mating season. They don't do very many things because half of the day they are sleeping, a quarter they are eating, they spend thirteen percent wandering around, and the rest is meeting other pandas or other things.

Giant pandas can also climb up trees. They climb trees to escape predators, take a nice little nap, or just look around.

Relatives:

The giant panda is closely related to the red panda (of course). It looks like a bear and can stand on its hind legs; it is a closer relative to the bear than to the raccoon. But if it is in the same family as the red panda, and the red panda is related to the raccoon and not to the bears, then what family should it be in? Scientists still don't know.