Lifecycle of a Panda

Welcome to panda’s home!
It is a blog writing about the life cycles of pandas. I love this part because I love learning about an animal’s growing stories.
In a panda’s lifetime, there are four stages: newborn, cubhood, independence, maturity.

Newborn (0-4 months)

Can’t you believe that pandas are tiny when they are born? How tiny is this tiny guy? A giant panda is born with about 100 grams or 4 ounces. Unlike human babies, newborn pandas are blind and powder white. The mother cradles her little baby in her paw and she won’t allow her to leave her paw for the first two months. The newborn do everything in the mother’s paw. The newborn grows and starts having soft and grey fur. Then the black and white pattern develops in a month. The newborn starts crawling after three months.

Cubhood (4-24 months)

Human babies start eating porridges after we are born, however, cubs start to eat around 6 months after they are born. They are fully weaned around 9 months. Wild cubs are very weak and defenseless, therefore they are easily died 4 months after they are born. It is also one of the reason that pandas are forcibly protected in China. After they learn and start eating themselves, the mother leave them alone in the wild. They start feeding themselves at that age. Generally cubs weigh about 45 kilograms or 100 pounds at the end of the first year.

Independence (1.5-2 years)

Cubs grow very quickly. At their age of 2, cubs leave the mother. This time is similar to human age of 18, teenages are independent when they turn 18. Parents are not responsible for their lives in law. At the fourth year, an independent adult panda weighs 150 kilograms or 330 pounds. This weight means that they are fully grown into an adult panda.

Maturity and Reproduction (4-6 years)
At a panda’s age of 4-6 years, like human’s marriage age, giant pandas are mature and able to reproduce and breed to their next generation (Female used to start breeding at the fourth year, male used to start reproducing at the sixth year). Wild pandas have very low reproduction rate, they used to have their first newborn until they are 7 or 8 years old.
Most pandas reproduce in late summer (in August) in hidden forests or dens where looks like nests.

Lifelong
Giant pandas can live up to 30 years in capacity, but wild pandas can only live up to 20 years in the wild.

Although the amount of pandas in capacity now are not so few, wild pandas are rare. Protect our national treasure—wild pandas.

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