This panda that looks funny and friendly turns out to be actually born as a meat-eating animal. Taxonomically, panda belongs to the Carnivorous order just as with lions, wolves and tigers.
In addition, pandas belong to the Ursidae family along with brown bears and polar bears. Actually bears are also not pure meat eaters, but meat is the biggest percentage in their diet.
Pixabay source
Uniquely, the Panda chose to make bamboo as the main menu. In fact, pandas do not have the completeness of the organ structure and physiology of herbivorous animals to digest bamboo.
Pixabay source
Herbivorous animals have a long digestive tract and are also more complete to digest complex constituent materials, such as cows that have 4 stomachs, compared to omnivorous and carnivorous animals whose digestive tract tends to be short and simpler.
A panda that has the same digestive tract as a brown bear will find it difficult to survive by eating bamboo. In addition, pandas do not have the enzymes needed to digest polysaccharides from bamboo plants and instead naturally in the panda genome there are many genes to produce enzymes that digest proteins found in meat. So, why does the panda still survive only by eating bamboo plants
Pixabay source
Panda, carnivore which can take about 10-16 hours per day to eat bamboo stems and leaves. The ability of the panda to survive by eating bamboo and fighting its nature as a true carnivore is due to the presence of microorganisms in the panda gastrointestinal tract.
Giant pandas evolved from bears that ate both plants and meat, and started eating bamboo exclusively about two million years ago. It is unclear what triggered the shift away from meat – possibly the lack of available prey or the relative abundance of bamboo. Scientists believe that the transition to a herbivore lifestyle may have become permanent, however, because pandas are known to have lost the gene for the savoury “umami” taste receptor. “We think they lost the gene that is the driver behind them wanting to eat meat,” said Valentine. Pandas poorly adapted for digesting bamboo, scientists find source
Microorganisms that live in the panda gastrointestinal tract produce enzymes needed to digest bamboo plants so that pandas can get nutrients to grow and develop by eating bamboo plants.
The genomes of microorganisms that live in the gastrointestinal tract of panda are also found in herbivorous animals such as cattle and termites. In general, pandas can eat 12 kilograms of bamboo sticks per day. However, only 2 kilograms can be digested and absorbed into nutrients.
Without the help of these microbes, 12 kilograms of bamboo sticks eaten by pandas will have no effect on pandas. Currently, microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract of panda are also being investigated for their ability in making biofuel from bamboo and various other plant matter.
Panda babies are born with a sterile digestive tract in the presence of microorganisms. Microorganisms that are useful in digesting bamboo plants are obtained after the baby panda is given a parent stool containing all microorganisms to digest bamboo.
The reason why pandas choose to eat bamboo instead of eating meat is not known with certainty, but the biggest possibility is due to the competition in getting food.
Panda evolved into herbivores through the help of microorganisms so they can eat bamboo compared to other bear relatives who are nutritious for their energy by eating meat.
The bamboo-eating giant panda actually harbors a carnivore-like gut microbiota predominated by bacteria such as Escherichia/Shigella and Streptococcus, according to new research published this week in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. source
However, it was recently discovered that most bacteria that live in the digestive tract of the panda are unable to degrade cellulose efficiently. Panda does evolve into bamboo eaters, but the digestive tract of the panda does not undergo evolution like other plant-eating animals.
“Unlike other plant-eating animals that have successfully evolved, anatomically specialized digestive systems to efficiently deconstruct fibrous plant matter, the giant panda still retains a gastrointestinal tract typical of carnivores,” said lead study author Zhihe Zhang, director of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, China. “The animals also do not have the genes for plant-digesting enzymes in their own genome. This combined scenario may have increased their risk for extinction.” source
Who would have thought that the life of a panda depends on the presence of microorganisms in the digestive tract? What if a baby panda when born is kept away from its mother before being given microorganisms to digest bamboo?
Will the baby panda become a meat eater? There are many things that might be used as research material from cute animals like pandas.
Reference:
Pandas poorly adapted for digesting bamboo, scientists find source
Giant Panda Gut Bacteria Can’t Efficiently Digest Bamboo source
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