# What evolutionary niche does the Panda fill anyway? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 6, 2004, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939 "2004-10-06T22:54:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/21 "2004-10-07T21:51:56Z")
> [@Chastain86](#): > > But wouldn’t you say their inability to adapt quickly enough automatically puts them in the evolutionary crosshairs? Sure it does. As I mentioned, specialists tend to be more vulnerable to extinction. But the panda’s slow generation turnover is not automatically a bad thing, otherwise they likely wouldn’t have evolved such in the first place. In the environment in which they evolved, it seemed like the proverbial “good idea at the time”. > [@](#): > > I’m not saying humankind bears no responsibility for their demise, but let’s face it. We’re forcing them to breed. This does not speak of adaptibility, given their current surroundings. Again, though, that they haven’t adapted doesn’t mean they can’t adapt. It’s all about pacing. Bacteria and cockroaches are everywhere because they adapt quickly. Pandas, obviously, adapt much more slowly, and are thus knocking on extinction’s door. Of course, all species ultimately die out, if for no other reason than it is an inevitable consequence of evolution via natural selection. So regardless whether they can adapt quickly or slowly, any given species still has but a limited “lifespan” so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/22 "2004-10-07T22:26:31Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > But the same sort of thing could be said of a lot of things; tigers, killer whales etc; they could disappear and the world wouldn’t come grinding to a halt (it didn’t when the dinosaurs disappeared, after all. And wouldn’t if humans also disappeared. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2004, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/23 "2004-10-07T22:26:47Z")
Pandas fill the econiche of “slow forest browser”. There is a spectrum of survival tactics used by herbivores. Rabbits take heavy losses to predators, so the best strategy for rabbits is to crank up both the metabolism and the life cycle as fast as possible; eat as much as they can, run as fast as they can, and breed like crazy. Since most (!) rabbits never live long enough to reproduce, this is what works. Deer are sort of like rabbits but not quite as urgent because of their greater body size. So run like crazy and breed moderately fast. Then there are herbivores that have taken the opposite tack: GO SLOW. Take your time to eat and digest a plentiful but ultra-low nutrition food source. Don’t move quickly. Don’t reproduce quickly. Because they live much more slowly, they NEED less. The exact opposite of the “live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse” philosophy; sort of the unambitious slackers of the animal kingdom. Usually these are arboreal creatures that can escape to the trees and so don’t face as much predatory pressure. Apes, sloths, koalas, - and pandas. Other than the occasional tiger, pandas didn’t get hunted much until humans came along. ---
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/24 "2004-10-09T20:08:41Z")
While not answering the OP, this could help get you there. Panda bears are related to Raccoons. (And if anyone makes mention to my Username… I like Raccoons, what can I say, and in college, our ENGLISH professor had us research any one sepcie we wanted… Procyon Lotor it was.) ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/25 "2004-10-09T21:36:24Z")
> [@stockton](#): > > And Keith Richards, Dick Clark and cockroaches… As if you could tell the difference. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/26 "2004-10-09T23:03:30Z")
> [@Chastain86](#): > > Now wait just a minute. Our “stewardship of the planet?” > > Now I don’t want this to turn to personal attacks, but I’ve heard similar sentiments from others in the past. And I have to ask – isn’t that kind of thinking rather arrogant on our part? > > Mother Nature existed long before we got here, and will probably exist long after we’re dust in the wind. We bear some responsibility to our planet and surroundings, in order to keep them clean and diverse for the benefit of our future offspring. But to suggest that we even have the power to destroy something like our entire global ecosystem discounts the power that life itself has. > > Species live, and species die. This is the way of evolution. To suggest that we have some power over that is somewhat obtuse. We may have control over the species we kill, but we hardly have control over life itself on this planet. > > I think, in general, we fight to keep certain species alive **despite their evolutionary lack of ability to adapt.** And that, to me, is wrong. We’re basically forcing pandas to breed, because they won’t on their own, for God’s sake. Does no one else find that appalling? > > In the long timeline of Earth, humankind if but a fraction of a second. And when you and I are gone, **life will find a way to go on**. I’m afraid stewardship gives us far more credit than we deserve, frankly. > > Anyway, nothing personal intended to your remarks. I believe we’ve developed a moral sense of what’s right or wrong, but make no mistake – we’re only along for the ride as long as it lasts. Since human-kind took it upon itself to “fix” nature by straightening rivers, filling in swamps, bringing other species into small niches and basically being directly responsible for the extinction of a number of species, then the least we can do is take responsibility for what we’ve done and stop trying to improve on nature (because we can’t) and try to repair the mistakes we have made. Sorry for the run on sentence I’m too tired to care to edit it. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/27 "2004-10-09T23:44:58Z")
> [@Meeko](#): > > Panda bears are related to Raccoons. Only in the sense that both are members of Carnivora. Panda bears are well and truly bears, in the Ursidae family. You might be thinking of the [Red Panda](http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/6.shtml) (also known as the Lesser Panda), which, along with raccoons, is placed in the Procyonidae family. ---
**Author:** ![Chastain86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Chastain86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chastain86)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/28 "2004-10-09T23:55:16Z")
> [@Wile E](#): > > … then the least we can do is take responsibility for what we’ve done and stop trying to improve on nature (because we can’t) and try to repair the mistakes we have made. I don’t know. Seems to me you can do more damage trying to “fix” a mistake than to simply accept it and move on. In simpler terms, I believe we keep the pandas breeding because they’re cute widdly smoofy-poos, not because we feel bad for endangering their habitats. If pandas looked like vultures, they’d have been extinct 25 years ago. To keep them bred despite evidence that they’re unsuited to exist is a dangerous trend that I don’t entirely agree with. But a panda never shot my paw or anything, so whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2004, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/29 "2004-10-10T00:16:32Z")
> [@Darwin's Finch](#): > > Only in the sense that both are members of Carnivora. Panda bears are well and truly bears, in the Ursidae family. You might be thinking of the [Red Panda](http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/6.shtml) (also known as the Lesser Panda), which, along with raccoons, is placed in the Procyonidae family. Correction: The exact classification of Red Pandas is under some dispute. Most, if not all, DNA analyses reject the inclusion of Red Pandas within Ursidae, and [more recent studies](http://www.msb.unm.edu/mammals/PDF/Flynn2000.pdf) [.pdf doc] indicate that they are most likely part of an as-yet unresolved trichotomy with Mephitids (skunks) and the clade containing Procyonids and Mustelids. So, they could be more closely related to raccoons, or they may be more closely related to skunks, or they could be equidistant from both. Some zoologists place them in their own family, Ailuridae, within Carnivora (and, specifically, within Musteloidea). > [@Chastain86](#): > > If pandas looked like vultures, they’d have been extinct 25 years ago. I dunno…California condors look like vultures (hell, they _are_ vultures), but captive breeding programs have raised their numbers from as low as 25 birds in the late '70s to 164 in 2000. Even vultures have advocates. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2004, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/30 "2004-10-10T00:47:21Z")
> [@Chastain86](#): > > To keep them bred despite evidence that they’re unsuited to exist is a dangerous trend that I don’t entirely agree with. Pandas, of course, were perfectly well “suited to exist” until humans began killing them, capturing them to exhibit (because they’re so damn cute), and destroying their habitat. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939/31 "2004-10-10T01:16:30Z")
I think the extinction we greenies get our grundies in a bunch over are the ones whose extinction is due entirely to our fuckups. Saying “Oh well, you couldn’t adapt, bubye” is ludicrous solipcistic assholery. All the great extinctions in planetary history were caused by some catastrophic event. This current extinction, the catastrophic event is _technology_, on a scale that natural systems have never had to deal with before. Each animal in a system has an effect on other animals in its system. A predator and its prey have a very close “relationship.” We’re the first animal to come along and interfere, suddenly, with pretty much EVERY such relationship on the planet. The effects that we’re having on all of these long-evolved systems is happening MUCH faster, on the whole, than the “normal” system shakeups that have been happening on an ongoing basis for millions of years. The cool thing about technology, while on the one hand it’s been the most indiscriminately murderous development in the history of evolution–barring the occasional asteroid smack–is that, on the other hand, it gives us the ability to recognize and change the things that make it so murderous. And unless we use it in such a way, unless we acknowledge the vast span of time it took for this balance to be accomplished, and the minute flash of time we’re allowing it to recover on its own from such a murderous onslaught, the system may collapse to the point where even technology can’t keep up with it. Nonetheless, despite **thermalribbon** ’s naivete– > [@](#): > > Well, I don’t think there is any question that we will face the same fate at some point. At not necessarily because we are poor stewards. Every creature has either gone extinct already, or will in the future. Including us. What is it, something like 99% of all forms of life ever to live are extinct. We are no different. –we’re no different? WE’RE NO DIFFERENT?–I think that our technology will enable us to survive any “third-party” extinction-level event that doesn’t destroy the entire planet unexpectedly. But at what expense? The “slippery slope” cliche is almost always misused, but in this case it’s perfectly valid. Each extinction alters its system in unknown and probably unknowable ways, so each extinction is the first pebble in a different landslide. Until we recognize the importance of the big-picture system and how much we owe to it–until, in other words, we are prepared to isolate ourselves from all of these systems and live in a “species bubble,” like an aquarium, requiring constant technological interference and “artificial” support, and will probably crash from time to time anyway as the technology evolves–until then, we continue down that slope, dislodging pebbles and boulders, and sending each one of them off on their own fractal-butterfly, infinitely branching and proliferating landslides. We’ll all end up in the same rockpile. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-evolutionary-niche-does-the-panda-fill-anyway/267939.md?page=1)