Red Panda Cool Facts for Kids - Animal Flashcards

• posted by admin
• 05 Dec 2022

The above card is part of the Creative Brain Animals Flashcard Box. Do take a look.

1. The red panda, also known as the lesser panda, is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It has dense reddish-brown fur with a black belly and legs, white-lined ears, a mostly white muzzle, and a ringed tail.
2. Bamboo makes up most of a red panda's diet, they will also occasionally eat eggs, insects, flowers, birds, and small mammals.
3. Red pandas are known by many names including Firefox, red bear-cat, red cat-bear, and the lesser panda.
4. Red panda mothers will build a birthing den in a hollow tree or a tree stump and line it with grass, moss, leaves, and tree branches to nest their young.
5. Just like a cat, red panda moms use their tongues to keep their babies clean and to keep them safe, mother red panda will carry her cubs in her mouth, by the neck.
6. Red pandas have a pseudo-thumb, an enlarged, modified wrist bone they use for climbing trees and grabbing bamboo stems and tree branches.
7. Red pandas sleep for up to 17 hours a day! They prefer to rest on tree branches or in tree hollows.
8. A red panda's tail can measure from 12 to 20 inches long that’s almost the length of its body which provides them with supreme balance while navigating the treetops. They will also use their tails as wraparound blankets in the cold mountain habitat.
9. Red pandas make a variety of sounds including tweets, squeals, grunts, hisses, and even a "huff-quack".
10. Red pandas blend in great with the red moss, white lichen, and yellow-orange-red foliage of their forest habitat. And their black bellies make them difficult to see from below.
11. The white on the red panda's face is almost luminescent and can guide a mother's lost cubs in the darkness.
12. When provoked or threatened, red pandas will stand on their hind legs to appear larger.
13. When it gets really cold, red pandas wrap their tail around themselves and go into a deep sleep, reducing their metabolic demands and lowering both their core temperature and respiration rate, a process called torpor.
14. Red pandas live in temperate forests at elevations between 4,900 and 13,000 feet and will move lower during the cold, winter months.
15. Red pandas may live as long as 23 years. They show symptoms of age at around 12 to 14 years old. Climate change is impacting species across the globe and red pandas with less than 10,000 left in the wild.

      QUIZ

1. What is the main diet of a Red panda?
2. What are the other names of Red Panda?
3. What process is torpor?
4. What helps Red Panda in climbing trees?
5. What gives them balance while navigating treetops?
6. When threatened, what does the Red Panda do?
7. What does a Red Panda wrap around itself, when it becomes really cold?
8. What is the life expectancy of a Red Panda?

ANSWERS FOR THE QUIZ

1. The main diet of a Red Panda is Bamboo.
2. Fire cat, Lesser Panda, Red Cat-Bear, Red Bear-Cat.
3. During very cold seasons they go into a deep sleep state for reducing their metabolic demands and lowering both their core temperature and respiration rate, this process is called torpor.
4. A pseudo-thumb, an enlarged, modified wrist bone they use for climbing trees and grabbing bamboo stems and tree branches.
5. Their tail gives them balance while climbing trees.
6. When threatened they stand on their hind legs to appear big.
7. It wraps its tail around itself, to keep warm.
8. They may live up to 23 years.

About the Author:

Saffura is a mother of three. She is a yoga instructor and has spent a lot of time teaching yoga for children. She narrates numerous stories to inculcate moral values in children, as she is certain that yoga is for the body and soul. As a mother and yoga instructor,  She enjoys new tasks and likes multitasking. She truly believes that will mould her into a strong writer. As a writer she does a lot of research and pays keen attention to details.