Wolong Giant Panda Breeding and Research Centre in Sichuan province has opened the world’s first kindergarten for baby pandas. The centre hopes to encourage the pandas to socialise and play, and eventually develop the skills needed to find a mate.
There are only 1000 giant pandas left in the wild and 138 in captivity. This is a frightening statistic, heightened by the fact that panda mothers can only conceive babies for a tiny 72-hour period each year.
If (and only if) you can handle the seriously cute, check out these wee pandas, playing on kindergarten equipment in the snow.
Check out this panda movie from YouTube:
And for more baby panda cuteness from Reuters…
Panda Facts
Think you know your panda facts? Take this Panda Quiz but brush up on your knowledge first…
- Pandas can eat more than 10,000 kilograms of bamboo a day.
- You can’t tell if a baby panda is a boy or a girl until they are 4-years-old!
- Pandas are pink when they are born and weigh one-nine-hundredths of their mother’s weight.
- Wild pandas are only found in China.
- Pandas need to eat bamboo or they will die.
- Their front paws have an extra “thumb” which is used to grasp small bamboo shoots.
- Pandas spend up to 14 hours a day eating.
- One of the reason pandas are becoming extinct is that they like to live alone and don’t socialise very well.
- Pandas can swim and climb trees!
- Considered living fossils, pandas have been on earth for over 3 million years.
