Life Cycle Of Giant Pandas
Giant pandas are born during late summer. July to September is the period when mother pandas give birth. Baby pandas stay in their mothers’ uterus for just 3 to 5 months.When giant pandas are born, they are tiny, blind, and pink, with few hairs. The average weight is 100g (0.2 pounds), only 1/900 of their mother’s weight (compared to around 1/20 for humans). The lightest one on record was only 36g (0.1 pounds), and the heaviest one 210g (0.5 pounds).
The limbs of newborn pandas are so weak that they are not able to stand at all. For 2 months after birth, baby pandas basically only feed on milk, sleep, and poo. The mother cradles her tiny cub in a paw and doesn't leave the den for several days after giving birth, even to drink. Cubs soon develop soft gray fur, which becomes coarser and develops its black and white pattern in a month. The new born panda doesn't move from the den in the first two months. After 3 months, baby pandas can start to walk. After 6 months, baby pandas can finally get their hands on bamboos.
When pandas hit the 1 year mark, they start to become independant and leave their mothers if she conceives. After 4 years old, pandas has hit maturity. Giant pandas are fully mature and able to breed at four to six years old (females at four, males at six), while captive giant pandas mature two to three years earlier. Young male pandas have a lower priority in the wild, and barely have any opportunity to mate until 7 or 8 years old. Female giant pandas are only fertile once for two to three days a year, sometime in the spring (March to May). They leave their partners after mating and rear their cubs alone. Female pandas normally bear one cub every 2 or 3 years from 4 to 18 years old. Giant panda gestation is 3 to 5 months, and cubs are usually born in late summer (August mostly) in hidden hollow trees or natural dens, where branches, dry grass, etc. are made into a kind of nest. Normally giant pandas give birth to a single cub. Even if a female has two cubs, she would normally choose to take care of one and abandon the other.
Giant pandas can live up to 30 years in captivity. Wild pandas live up to 20 years in the wild. With medical and nutritional help in captivity, pandas can live more than 30 years.
QnA:
1. How long does it take for a panda to hit maturity?
2. How many months till pandas are able to walk?
3. When can pandas mate?
4. When are panda cubs born?
5. What will happen if a female panda has two cubs?
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