‘An Evolutionary Throwback’: Panda Filmed Eating Meat
A wild panda was caught on a remote camera eating an uncharacteristic meal recently: meat. A wildebeest carcass (of natural causes) was used as a feeding lure to see what sort of animals in the Wanglong Nature Reserve might be interested in a wilde-snack, and the remote camera they set up captured this adult panda.
It’s not unusual, considering that pandas are members of the bear family. This means that they have the ancestral digestive system of an animal that eats meat.
This evolutionary “throwback” actually isn’t that surprising. We’ve known for a long time that the giant panda is one of the most inefficient eaters in the animal kingdom. Because its digestive system has such a hard time breaking down its meal of choice - bamboo - it loses most of its food as waste and must spend up to 16 hours a day eating just to get enough nutrients to survive.
(via NPR)
Not totally creepy at all. Nope.
