What Do Pandas Eat? Bamboo Diet and How Much They Eat

A bear that lives on bamboo

The giant panda is a member of the bear family and the order Carnivora, yet it is effectively a plant-eater. Fossils and genetics suggest pandas began eating bamboo millions of years ago and became almost fully dependent on it in the last couple of million years. Along the way they lost a working taste receptor for umami, the savory taste of meat.

Bamboo has big advantages for an animal that lives in China’s mountain forests. It grows in dense thickets, stays green all year and few large animals compete for it. Its drawback is that it is tough, fibrous and low in energy.

How much bamboo does a panda eat?

Because a panda gets so little from each mouthful, it has to eat a great deal. Daily intake depends on which part of the plant it is eating:

A panda sits upright, grips a stalk with its front paw and its pseudo-thumb, strips the leaves into a bundle and chews them with broad, flat molars. It can bite through thick stems that would defeat most animals. With so much fiber passing through, pandas produce a large number of droppings, often dozens a day.

Why pandas struggle to digest bamboo

Cows, deer and other true herbivores have long, complex guts full of microbes that break down plant fiber. The panda still has the short, simple gut of a meat-eater, and its gut bacteria are not specialists at digesting cellulose. Feeding studies suggest it digests only about a fifth of the dry matter it eats, mostly the easier starches, sugars and proteins.

To cope, pandas live on a tight energy budget. Their daily energy use is very low for a mammal of their size, comparable to that of sloths. They move slowly, rest a lot, avoid steep climbs when they can and keep social encounters short. They also eat the parts of bamboo that offer the most nutrition at each time of year, moving up and down the mountains to follow fresh shoots.

Raw bamboo contains compounds that release cyanide. Pandas take in small amounts every day but break most of it down and pass it out in their urine, and their gut microbes may also help.

Which bamboo species do pandas eat?

Giant pandas eat about two dozen kinds of bamboo, but in any one mountain range only a few species matter. Common ones belong to genera such as Fargesia (umbrella bamboo), Bashania (arrow bamboo) and Yushania. Different bamboos grow at different heights, so pandas move between them with the seasons.

Having more than one bamboo species nearby is vital. Each bamboo species flowers at the same time across huge areas, usually only once every few decades, and then dies back. It takes years for seedlings to regrow. In the mid-1970s, after umbrella bamboo flowered and died in the Min Mountains, more than 130 dead pandas were found. Pandas with a second bamboo species within reach can switch food and survive.

Do pandas eat meat or anything besides bamboo?

Yes, but very little. Field biologists have recorded wild pandas eating pikas, bamboo rats and other small rodents, birds’ eggs and the remains of dead animals. They also nibble a few other plants now and then. These extra foods make up well under 1% of the wild diet.

In zoos, pandas are given fresh bamboo every day, plus small amounts of other foods prepared by specialist keepers. Keepers sometimes use pieces of fruit as rewards during training.

Giant panda vs red panda diet

The red panda also eats mostly bamboo, especially young leaves and shoots, and like the giant panda it has an enlarged wrist bone that helps it hold stems. But it is a much smaller animal from a different family, and it adds more fruit, acorns, blossoms, roots and occasionally eggs or insects to its diet. Read more in what do red pandas eat?

Myths about the panda diet

• Myth: pandas eat bamboo because they are lazy. Fact: their low-energy lifestyle is the result of the diet, not the cause. Bamboo is plentiful but poor food, so saving energy is a survival strategy.
• Myth: pandas cannot eat anything but bamboo. Fact: they can and occasionally do eat meat, eggs and other plants. They simply rely on bamboo because it is always available.
• Myth: pandas digest bamboo like a cow. Fact: they have no multi-chambered stomach and digest bamboo poorly, which is why they must eat so much of it.

To learn more about giant panda life beyond the menu, see are pandas bears?