You know you have one of the best jobs in the world when you get to watch baby pandas play during your time off. I often walk down to the Kindergarten on base and just sit and watch. I find it incredible that such a solitary animal can be so social.
The toddler pandas in the Kindergarten
These furry toddlers spend their time playing, socializing, sleeping and eating. What an ideal life. At the moment there are two groups of three cubs that are housed together, all around 12 months of age. Their outside area is open to the public and full of different objects, play equipment, trees and shrubs to play on, in and around.
These normally solitary animals are housed together for a few years while they are still young and playful. Interaction at this stage of their life is important to establish familiarity with other individuals of the same species. This makes for less aggressive pandas if they ever want to introduce them to another during the mating season. It also enables them to form personalities and bonds, discover their environment, play with each other and learn boundaries. Which is important for any animal.
At two to three years of age they are moved from the Kindergarten to their own enclosure. They are happy being alone; this is how they would be out in the wild. Often a male’s territory or home range will overlap with the home range of multiple females in the wild. This way, when females are coming into estrus they start leaving scent marks that communicate her sexual receptivity[1]. It is believed that chemical communication in the giant pandas also communicate a lot more than just reproductive condition; like age, sex, size, species, and how old the scent is[2][3]. These scent markings are vital for the continuation of a solitary species. They enable the link between a male and a female during those short 2-3 days of estrus. Pandas use specific scent marking sites in the wild, and leave scents at varying heights, which might also communicate status of an individual[4]. It really is funny the first time you see a panda leave a scent mark. You are left a little confused, a little amused and feeling a little privileged.
More often than not a female will attract more than one male. This is by no means a coincidence. The female can choose the biggest, strongest, best looking male out of the bunch that she has attracted. Her choice is not only made by visual cues, but it is believed she also uses olfactory and auditory cues. On some occasions a female may mate with more than one male.
Xi Xi and her baby
After mating, the male will go away and leave the female to take care of the pregnancy and the baby. Her offspring will stay with her until 18months of age, and will have a home range that overlaps hers until two years of age. Once this cycle is complete, they all go back to being solitary animals. The following year, around springtime, the cycle will begin again.
-Grace
References:
[1] Swaisgood, R., Lindburg, D., and Zhang, H. (2002) iscrimination of oestrous status in giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) via chemical cue in urine. Journal of Zoology 257, 381-386.
[2] Swaisgood, R., Zhou, X., Zhang, G., Lindburg, D., and Zhang, H. (2003) Application of behavioural knowledge to conservation in the giant panda. International Journal of Comparative Psychology(16), 65-84.
[3] White, A., and Swaisgood, R. (2003) Chemical communication in the giant panda: the rols of age i the signaller and assessor. Journal of Zoology 259(2), 171-178.
[4] White, A., Swaisgood, R., and Zhang, H. (2002) The highs and lows of chemical communication in the ginat pandas: effect of scent deposition height on signal discrimination. Bahavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 51(6), 519-529.
