Hi, I live in The National Zoo in Washington, DC. I would love for all of you to come and visit me. Do you know my name?
Ok, if you don’t know my name, do you know these things about me?
Do we, the giant pandas spend hot days in those cooled dens?
Do we prefer to be in trees or on the ground?
Photo J.M.M.
thedailylily.com 
that you don’t know my name? Could I be one of these?
Mei Xiang, Tian Tian,or their cub, Tai Shan?
I believe the panda cub is Tai Shan. His mother is Mei Xiang. Tai Shan is about 16 months old and weighs 77 pounds. Tian Tian is the father and is not involved in the care of Tai Shan. Mei and Tai are kept away from Tian. According to a little research from the National Zoo, I also learned that the bears live naturally in the temperate zone bamboo forest of central China. They are on the endangered list. As few as 1,600 survive in the mountain forests of central China.
Did you know that bamboo is a grass? When looking into what pandas eat I found that bamboo is in the grass family. Also rice, wheat, and sugarcane is too. Here is how you can tell if a plant belongs to the grass family:
1. The leaves are longer than they are wide.
2. Parts of the leaves wrap around the stem.
3. Their joints are solid and at each joint, a leaf grows in an opposite direction from the leaf above and the leaf below.
You might want to go out into a field and investigate the grasses of the field. Do you see more than one type of grass? Does the grass have seeds and how are they attached?
I read that Pandas in the wild will occasionally eat an animal such as a small rodent or a musk deer fawn. Zoo pandas may also eat carrots, apples and sweet potatoes in addition to their grass diet. Apparently they can be as dangerous as any bear though they look so cute and cuddly. Has anyone seen these beautiful pandas in person?
the cub?,,,dj