What a cute little animal is this? This is the Red Panda.
It is so sad but these little guys are endangered! There are less than 10,000 in the wild! 10K!
There habitat is being destroyed and there are poachers killing them! There’s
an estimate that 40% decrease in number over the last 50 years.
They have a false thumb which has developed over time to
help them climb trees and eat bamboo (It’s actually an extended wrist bone).
They are also vegetarian carnivores - this means that they mostly live on plants, bamboo in this case, but will also eat some insects if they come across it. They are not hunters.
Red pandas live in the Eastern Himalayas and South-western China, they are roughly the size of a large domestic cat, AND YOU CAN ADOPT THEM!!! But this is only a symbolic adoption. You cannot take them home. Read more here on how you can do it and in the process help these animals. They also live up to 15 years.
Red pandas have two extinct relatives. If something is extinct it means there are none of them left on earth.
The red panda is maybe on your computer every day. There’s actually a browser named after them, Firefox yup, Firefox actually means red panda!! Originally Mozilla wanted to name the browser Firebird, but someone else was using that name so they made it Firefox, another name for the red panda and then in 2010 Mozilla adopted two baby red pandas!!
The red panda is part of the Ailuridae family and they are
the only living members of their family.
Read more about this animal here and also watch the video.