Giant pandas, like other animals, have fun sometimes. Although they have their quiet days, pandas are fun to watch when they play.
As a panda lover, you’ll be wondering, what do pandas like to do?
Here’s a quick answer – the giant pandas love sleeping, prefer being alone, and look for food at night. Except during the mating season, the pandas do not like to relate with one another.
Sure, the pandas are solitary animals that spend their days sleeping and night looking for food. What exactly do the pandas like to do?
Check out 7 of them:
1. Pandas Like To Swim
Same as the other bear family, the pandas are perfectly skilled at swimming. Since they don’t hunt marine animals, the pandas spend little time in the water.
If a panda bear senses danger in the river, it will swim out easily.
Most of the time, the giant pandas swim in mountain streams. They also have fun in the winter snow.
2. Pandas Like To Climb Trees
Apart from being great swimmers, pandas are also good at climbing trees. Having sharp claws is an advantage to the panda bears. While climbing, especially the chubby pandas, press the tree trunk hard to prevent falling.
Giant pandas learn how to climb at 5 months, which makes it easy for them. Baby pandas use their mother to practice climbing till they grow older.
If a tree trunk is too hard or smooth, the pandas may not be able to climb it well.
RECOMMENDED READING: DO GIANT PANDAS CLIMB TREES?
3. Pandas Like To Eat
Eating bamboo can be considered one of the pandas’ favorite hobbies. Although the panda bears eat insects, carrots and small mammals, 99% of their diet is bamboo.
Surprisingly, a panda can spend more than 10 hours eating and looking for more food. Since their favorite diet has low nutrients, the pandas need to keep eating it to gain energy.
Compared to the giant pandas in the wild, the pandas in captivity usually eat healthier and richer diets. So, they don’t have to look for food most of the time.
4. Pandas Like Rolling Around
One of the few ways the pandas have fun is by rolling around. Sometimes, the pandas roll down the hill and other times, they roll in the snow.
But during winter, the panda bears love to roll in horse poop. According to researchers, the giant pandas roll in horse manure to stay warm during the cold seasons.
CHECK OUT – DO GIANT PANDAS ROLL AROUND?
5. Pandas Like To Poop
After eating around 30 pounds of bamboo throughout the day, the pandas poop a lot. In fact, they can poop more than 40 times daily because of their bamboo diet.
Unfortunately, the panda bears do not have the gut bacteria that digest plant matter.
As a result, only 17% of over 30 pounds of their diet digest. This means the giant pandas pass out most of the food they eat as a waste product.
It’s no wonder a panda bear may be sleeping and pooping at the same time.
6. Pandas Like To Sleep
Among the things the giant pandas like to do, sleeping made it to the list. In the wild, a giant panda can sleep for 2 to 4 hours between meals. In other words, giant pandas eat and sleep at intervals.
Sometimes, they lie on their backs or their stomachs. Other times, the pandas lie on their sides and even roll themselves up into a ball.
In captivity, the zookeepers make sure the panda bears are fully engaged with different activities. Often, the giant pandas play with piles of sawdust, bamboo puzzles, and other toys.
7. Pandas Like Being Alone
Naturally, pandas are solitary creatures, except during the mating seasons. Once a panda senses the presence of another panda, it will climb the tree or move away.
Unlike other animals, the giant pandas avoid one another in every way possible.
However, the panda bears come together during the mating seasons (March-May). During this period, the female panda can only get pregnant between 3 to 7 days every year.
What Do Pandas Do For Fun?
Pandas have fun in many ways, whether in the wild or captivity.
Here’s a short list of what they do for fun:
- Pandas eat for fun!
- Pandas sleep for fun!
- Pandas climb for fun!
- They swim for fun!
- They roll around for fun!
To learn more about the things giant pandas do for fun, click here – What do giant pandas do for fun?
Final Thoughts
Now, we’ve come to the final part of this article. All we’ve discussed so far is that pandas like to do many things. These include eating, sleeping, climbing trees, and swimming.
In addition, the giant pandas also like pooping, rolling around, and being alone.
Bear in mind that the panda bears are unique in their ways and fun to watch. Do you want to watch pandas in reel time? Click here to watch the different Panda Cam.
