Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) Fact Sheet: Diet & Feeding

Bamboo specialists

• More than 99% of diet is bamboo
  • Consume 12-15 kg/day of bamboo roots, shoots, and leaves (26-33lbs)
    • Favor shoots (highly nutritious, low fiber, available during the spring), then young leaves (less fiver than otder leaves) (Swaisgood et al. 2016)
  • Capable of eating up to 38kg (84 lbs) of "new" bamboo shoots
  • Abundance and access to quality bamboo, especially during the late winter and early spring, may be one limiting factor on populations in the wild (Li et al. 2017)
    • Much greater foraging effort required November-February; more time searcher for younger, more nutritious leaves
• Consume 25 species of bamboo
  • Only a few bamboo species are widespread at the high altitudes pandas now inhabit
    • Bashania fangiana in Wolong (sub alpine conifer forest)
    • Fargesia spathacea, F. robusta, Sinarundinaria chungii, S. nitida, and S. fangiana in lower altitudes
  • Pandas require at least 2 species of bamboo to avoid starvation
    • All plants of single bamboo species flower, die, and regenerate at the same time
• Protein in leaves, branches, and stems
  • Leaves contain the highest levels of protein
• Pandas change their foraging behavior to take advantage of key nutrients, such as calcium, phosphorus, and nitrogen (Wei et al. 2015)

Dietary comparision with other bears

• Most bears consume high amounts of plant matter
  • Many rely on plants for at least 75% of their diet (except for carnivorous polar bears)

Other food items

• Account for c. 1% of diet
  • Occasionally eat eggs, small or infant animals, carrion – all opportunistically
  • Forage in farmlands for pumpkin, kidney beans, wheat, domestic pig food (Hu & Wei 2004)
  • Occasionally eat other plant species
  • Consumption of soil observed, but rarely (perhaps for absorbing plant toxins)

Diet varies with 3 ecological seasons:

• April - June
  • Mainly bamboo stems
• July - October
  • Mainly leaves
• November-March
  • Old shoots, stems, leaves

Feeding

• Feed for 14 hrs/day
• Body posture while feeding
• Take up a sitting position is usually assumed with forelegs free
• An accessory lobe "thumb" on the pad of each forepaw can be flexed and controls the position of the bamboo stalk
• Stalk is grasped with teeth
• Tough outer layer is stripped off before it is eaten
• Feeding efficiency compensates for their low quality diet
• Eat only the most nutritious parts of bamboo
• Eat rapidly
• Pass food quickly through digestive system

Drinking

• Typically drink at least once/day
  
• Take water from standing pools
• Throughout the year pandas have a water imbalance
• More water eliminated in feces than is ingested from food
• Water offset in part by eating wet bamboo in rainy season

Nearly 99% of the giant panda diet is bamboo.

Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. All rights reserved.

Hu & Wei (2004)
Pan & Lü (1993)
Schaller et al. (1985)
Li et al. (2017)