Giant panda

Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Ursidae
Genus and Species: Ailuropoda melanoleuca
  • black-and-white panda resting on its back against a tree
  • Panda on a tree branch
  • Small view of panda sitting on a hillside in its outdoor exhibit
  • panda rolling in the snow
  • Closeup of panda with its mouth agape
  • Panda chomping on bamboo
  • Panda with bamboo in foreground
  • panda with head and one paw over a branch
  • Young panda climbing a tree trunk
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Giant panda

Native to central China, giant pandas have come to symbolize vulnerable species. As few as 1,864 giant pandas live in their native habitat, while another 300 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world. The Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute is a leader in giant panda conservation. Ever since these charismatic bears arrived at the Zoo in 1972, animal care staff and scientists have studied giant panda biology, behavior, breeding, reproduction, and disease. These experts are also leading ecology studies in giant panda's native habitat. The Zoo's giant panda team works closely with colleagues in China to advance conservation efforts around the world.

Tips for Visiting the Giant Pandas

Depending on the time and the weather, the giant pandas have a choice to be outside or inside the panda house. The pandas typically have outdoor access until early afternoon. The panda house, an indoor viewing area, is open to visitors from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Early arrival is recommended to avoid large crowds and long lines. Long lines require earlier cut-off times to ensure those waiting can enter the panda house before it closes. Please note that all of the Zoo's animals have the option to enjoy some time away from the crowds. If the pandas are not on view, they may be spending time in an enclosure behind-the-scenes.

Flash photography and video with handheld devices are permitted inside the panda house. For the safety of our visitors, the use of tripods is prohibited.

Physical Description

The giant panda, a black-and-white bear, has a body typical of bears. It has black fur on its ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Although scientists do not know why these unusual bears are black and white, some speculate that the bold coloring provides effective camouflage. In patches of dense bamboo, an immobile giant panda is nearly invisible, and virtually disappears among snow covered rocky outcrops on a mountain slope. This theory does not work, however, when considering that giant pandas have no natural enemies to hide from. Another thought is that the pattern may accentuate social signals in some way, or help giant pandas to identify one another from a distance so they can avoid socializing, as they are typically a solitary animal. Another theory suggests that the black absorbs heat while the white reflects it, helping giant pandas maintain an even temperature. Unfortunately, there is no one conclusive theory as to why giant pandas are black and white.



About the size of an American black bear, giant pandas stand between 2 and 3 feet (60 to 90 centimeters) tall at the shoulder (on all four legs), and reach 4 to 6 feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) long. Males are larger than females, weighing up to 250 pounds (113 kilograms) in the wild. Females rarely reach 220 pounds (104 kilograms).

Native Habitat




Giant pandas do not exhibit body characteristics that communicate visual signals. They have round, inexpressive faces. Their tails are stubs and therefore cannot flag signals to other giant pandas. They have no crest or mane to erect and their ears are not flexible enough to cock forward or flatten. It is thought that giant pandas never developed these visual accessories due in part to their habitat and solitary nature. Giant pandas live in dense, fog-enshrouded stands of bamboo that obstruct a direct line of sight and any potential visual communications. Giant pandas do occasionally vocalize when playing. During mating, they become very vocal, relying on extremely detailed vocalizations to express all shades of mood from amorous to angry.

Most of their communication is accomplished through scent marking throughout their habitat and territory. Giant pandas mark their territory by rubbing secretions from their anal glands onto tree trunks, rocks, or on the ground, usually along paths that they habitually tread. Scent marking alerts giant pandas in the vicinity to one another, and depending on who reads the mark, the scents may either separate giant pandas or help bring them together. Outside of breeding season, a scent mark that is unfamiliar is usually enough to send a potential intruder ambling away. During breeding season, however, a female's scent mark advertises her sexual readiness and draws males to her. A female is more likely to accept a male whose scent she recognizes and has encountered before.

Food/Eating Habits



Social Structure

Adult giant pandas may be generally solitary, they do communicate periodically through scent marks, calls, and occasional meetings.

Recent research has also found that giant pandas may form communities of seven to 15 individuals within the local population. These individuals occupy a "group" territory, within which male home ranges overlap almost completely while female home ranges overlap far less. Members of different "groups" generally avoid socializing with each other.


Reproduction and Development




Sleep Habits

In the wild, giant pandas typically nap between feedings for two to four hours at a time, snoozing on their side, back, or belly, either sprawled or curled up. While a giant panda is resting, it continues to defecate. The number of droppings at a rest site can be used to gauge the relative amount of time a giant panda spent at that site. During a short rest of less than two hours, there are five to ten droppings. Eleven to 25 droppings often accompany rests lasting longer than two hours. Most rest periods are two to four hours in duration but may increase to six or more hours during the summer months.


Scientists aren't sure how long giant pandas live in the wild, but they are sure it's shorter than lifespans in zoos. Chinese scientists have reported zoo pandas as old as 35. The Smithsonian National Zoo's Hsing-Hsing died at age 28 in 1999.

As few as 1,864 giant pandas live in their native habitat, while another 300 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world. The largest threat to giant panda survival is habitat destruction. People in need of food and income have cleared forests for agriculture and timber. This logging has fragmented a once continuous habitat, leaving small groups of pandas isolated from each other. When populations become small, they are extremely susceptible to extinction due to environmental or genetic influences, such as drought or inbreeding. Small populations cannot rebound the same way large populations do; as groups of pandas become more isolated, it is more likely that reproduction, disease resistance, and population stability will be threatened.

For more than 40 years, the Zoo has celebrated these charismatic bears by creating and maintaining one of the world's foremost panda conservation programs. In that time, the Zoo's team - consisting of dozens of animal care staff, scientists, researchers, international collaborators and conservationists - has made great strides in saving this species from extinction by studying giant panda behavior, health, habitat, and reproduction. Specifically, it has allowed scientists at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute to learn about panda estrus, breeding, pregnancy, pseudopregnancy and cub development - work that is shared around the world with other institutions that also care for and breed this vulnerable species.

Breeding Giant Pandas

Zoo scientists began giant panda research when Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing arrived at the Zoo in 1972. A history and timeline of giant pandas at the Zoo can be found here. Much has been learned since that time but there still remains much more to learn. With the arrival of Tian Tian and Mei Xiang, the Zoo has developed a ten-year research plan that will hopefully culminate in a growing, thriving population of giant pandas. Some research areas will repeat behavioral observation studies on Tian Tian and Mei Xiang in order to increase sample size and determine whether a behavior pattern is common to giant pandas or particular to an individual. In other areas, such as reproductive biology, the advanced techniques scientists use today largely did not exist when Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing were alive. Also, opportunities for research and conservation initiatives in the wild, including the potential for increasing the wild giant panda population in China through reintroduction, are greater today than at any time in the past. However, these plans and initiatives will be costly to carry out, as will China's official National Plan for the Conservation of Giant Pandas and their Habitats.

Scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation and Biology Institute's Center for Conservation Genomics, have become adept at studying the genetic relatedness of pandas in human care. Chinese colleagues maintain an up-to-date studbook of these vulnerable animals. Zoo scientists developed the formula used to make breeding recommendations for the entire giant panda population in human care, ensuring that it is genetically healthy. Scientists are working to preserve 90 percent of the genetic diversity of the giant panda population in human care.

Panda breeding season is a race against the biological clock. It only comes once a year and our giant panda team, including scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation and Biology Institute's Center for Species Survival, and vets, keepers, and biologists from the animal care teams must be ready. Giant panda females, like Mei Xiang, ovulate for just 24 to 72 hours. To identify the opening of that tiny window, animal keepers carefully watch Mei Xiang for any behavioral sign of estrus. At the same time, scientists monitor hormones in her urine to pinpoint the window when she is ready to breed. If attempts at natural breeding are not successful, scientists can step in, collect fresh or frozen-thawed semen from a male, and use the genetic material collected to artificially inseminate a female. At the Zoo, three artificial inseminations have resulted in successful births: male Tai Shan in 2005, female Bao Bao in 2013, and a cub in 2015.

Saving Pandas in the Wild

Under the terms of the Zoo's agreement with China, scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation and Biology Institute's Conservation Ecology Center have studied these bears both in the wild and in human care.

Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute ecologists spend months in China every year studying wild pandas and their neighbors, such as Asiatic black bears and takin. They teach colleagues in China how to conduct censuses and surveys of large mammals, including giant pandas that live in the wild, using geographic information systems (GIS) and other high-tech tools for tracking wildlife.

They are also working to identify new landscapes for giant panda reintroduction. Field research has revealed that wild pandas' habitat is highly fragmented, which means pandas have a difficult time finding a mate. To address that problem, Zoo scientists and colleagues have been exploring the possibility of creating "corridors" of forests that link isolated habitats. Such corridors would give giant pandas more options for movement and mate selection. They might also assist with the reintroduction of captive-born pandas into the wild.

The Zoo's pandas are part of Panda Watch behavior study. Each day, dedicated Friends of the National Zoo volunteers called Panda Watchers monitor the pandas' behavior via the Panda Cam. Over the years, they've amassed mountains of data on the species, which is notoriously difficult to study in the wild.

The Future

In December 2011, David M. Rubenstein donated $4.5 million to the Zoo to fund the giant panda program through 2016. In appreciation, the giant panda complex was named the David M. Rubenstein Family Giant Panda Habitat. In addition, young conservation biologists in the U.S. and in China who were awarded Smithsonian's National Zoo fellowships for their work to save this vulnerable species were named "David M. Rubenstein Fellows." The gift was used to fund conservation efforts in China, reproductive science, professional training programs, giant panda care at the Zoo, upgrades to the Zoo habitats and public education. Mr. Rubenstein provided an additional $4.5 million donation in fall 2015.

The gift allows the Zoo's animal care and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's scientific team to proceed with the five-year science plan established with their Chinese colleagues from the China Wildlife Conservation Association. The science plan has specific goals: to examine the creation and impact of corridors to link fragmented habitats that will benefit giant pandas and other wildlife species, including promoting genetic diversity; examine how to restore habitats, especially those where pandas appear to be making a comeback; provide advice on giant panda reintroduction; examine the potential impact of transmissible diseases on giant pandas and other wildlife species, including providing advice on implementing new programs associated with a Wildlife Disease Control Center being built in Sichuan Province; and continue research on giant panda reproduction and management, because, although there has been major success in Chinese breeding centers, some pandas still experience reproductive challenges.

As per the Zoo's original agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association, any cub born to Mei and Tian would be sent to a breeding center in one of the panda reserves in China sometime after the cub turned two years old. In April 2007, it was determined that Tai Shan would remain at the Zoo an additional two years past his second birthday, which was July 9, 2007. This extension allowed Tai Shan to become an adolescent bear in front of his fans. What's more, Zoo scientists were able to continue their studies of his growth and development to document changes during this little-known stage of a panda's life. On February 2010, Tai Shan was sent back to China, per the loan agreement, to a breeding center in Bifengxia, China. The new loan, which was agreed upon in 2010, states that any cub born at Zoo will stay for four years. Bao Bao, Mei Xiang's second surviving cub born on Aug. 23, 2013, departed for China on Feb. 21, 2017.



