The researchers believe that by the time a baby panda grows up, it will develop the ability to pick the freshest and most nutritious bamboo, which enables them to adapt to a plant-based diet.

National Panda Day highlights global conservation efforts to protect pandas from habitat loss and possible extinction.

A panda's daily diet consists almost entirely of the leaves ... While they are almost entirely vegetarian, pandas will sometimes hunt for pikas and other small rodents. Indeed, as members of the bear ...

Giant panda bears evolved away from other bear species about 20 million years ago ... “MiRNA in bamboo can enter giant pandas’ bodies through diet, be absorbed by the intestine, enter the blood ...

In the new study, Li and colleagues describe how they analyzed the blood from seven pandas, one of which was a juvenile, and found the presence of 57 miRNAs likely originating from their bamboo diet.