GomiBoy
February 18, 2008, 8:55am
1
I love the BBC.
I am currently listening to Panda Porn on BBC Radio 4’s today program. Apparently, trying to get pandas to mate in China in captivity, they are playing soundtracks of pandas mating to ‘get them in the mood.’ So BBC Radio 4 listeners are getting to hear panda mating noises in all their glory.
What’s wrong with Barry White and a bottle of Chablis, I ask?
This is all wrong. The reason they’re having trouble breeding pandas is that pandas are prudes . They’re waiting until they’re sure nobody is watching.
GomiBoy
February 18, 2008, 9:07am
3
(Cool website BTW - is that your personal one?)
jjimm
February 18, 2008, 9:55am
4
I heard that when I was driving to work too. Very amusing. I got the impression that it was a full-on porno vid in their cages, though. I love the fact that the female beats the crap out of male after they finished shagging.
I visited that breeding sanctuary in Chengdu three years ago, and wrote the following after I visited:
Anyone who tries to use the remarkable nature of evolution to prove the existence of God through ‘intelligent design’ really needs to explain the panda.
In evolutionary terms, the panda is an incompetent buffoon, albeit an amiable one. Despite having cleverly evolved an extra thumb to oppose its other five fingers, giving it an adorable anthropomorphic nature when it’s feeding, it also suffers from a huge catalogue of ridiculous genetic mishaps.
It eats only bamboo. However, it is so inefficient in the digestion of its sole foodstuff that it can only absorb 2% of what it ingests - panda poos are basically raw bamboo - so an adult panda has to find and eat 14kg of bamboo every single day to remain alive. Due to the massive amount of harvesting, munching and inefficient processing it needs to do to its food, it has hardly any energy to do anything else.
Add to this that they live alone in the forest, rarely forming social groups, yet that they’re extremely particular about who they mate with (or “fall in love” as the Breeding Centre video told us), and have almost no energy for making sweet panda love anway.
Furthermore, if they do manage to get pregnant, their babies are born in an embyonic state, but with no handy marsupial pouch in which they can reach fœtal maturity, requiring the mummy panda to hold the ickle baby in her hand for months until it can be put on the ground, meaning she can hardly feed herself. And worse still, first-time mothers have absolutely no idea what to do with their babies, and often bat them around like a cat plays with a mouse, until they die. With all these things going against them, the panda is a creature that is just destined for extinction.
If God really is in the machine, then He must have had a serious hangover the day he conceived the panda. That they evolved to be so spectacularly inefficiently specialised in the first place is incredible - they must have had absolute free rein over the hillsides of China for millions of years - but that they have survived into the 21st century is nothing short of miraculous (pun intended).
Thank you. Yes - I have other personal websites, but this is the only one I’m actively working on at the mo.
Zsofia
February 18, 2008, 3:52pm
6
See, the problem is probably that the pandas are bored by the porn, 'cause it’s all in black and white.
Hey, some people like interracial porn.
Zsofia
February 18, 2008, 4:52pm
8
Yeah, but nobody likes that monochrome arty shit.
Do they put on some Barry (black and) White?