The national treasure of ＂removing makeup＂ turned out to be a boy？ The latest research on the first white giant panda in China has come.

In everyone’s impression, giant pandas are the standard color scheme of "black+white", especially their remarkable "dark circles", which are the classic elements of the giant panda image. However, there are also "exceptions". A few months ago, the Wolong National Nature Reserve Administration of Sichuan released a batch of special photos and videos taken in the Wolong area of the Giant Panda National Park. The content is the complete moving image of the only wild white giant panda known in the world.

This white giant panda was first discovered in 2019, and only one silhouette was taken at first. Since then, the staff has been tracking and monitoring it for four years, recording its clear front image, its cross-activity trajectory with many wild giant pandas, as well as its behavior of eating bamboo, rubbing the trunk to mark and suspected mating or fighting.

The initial study found that the white giant panda not only survived healthily, but also had normal communication and interaction with other wild giant pandas in the region. The albino mutation did not affect its growth and social activities. With the deepening of the research work, more and more scientific research results are being achieved. Next, let’s take a look at the latest research release.

China’s first white giant panda

Confirmed as male

Four years ago, a rare white giant panda appeared in the surveillance video, which shocked the staff. Later, they deployed several real-time infrared cameras in the area where the images of the white giant panda were collected, and obtained more and more moving images of the white giant panda. In the process of continuous monitoring and research, relevant experts have preliminarily inferred the gender of the white giant panda in combination with its comprehensive characteristics such as shape and behavior.

Wu Daifu, Senior Engineer of China Giant Panda Protection Research Center:It’s obvious to see this. According to my experience in dealing with giant pandas for more than 20 years, combined with the video, I think this white giant panda should be a male giant panda.

For this white giant panda with possible genetic variation, the unclear imaging evidence captured in the wild is not enough to fully support the inference of its gender. If you want to get more clear biological information, you can only pass genetic testing, provided that you can collect feces or other samples of white giant pandas. However, this is not an easy task. The altitude of the white panda habitat is from 2,500 meters to 3,000 meters, and it takes more than 10 hours for the staff to climb in the water. In addition, there are various wild animals in the habitat area, and there are other giant pandas’ activity trajectories that cross and overlap with each other. It is very difficult and risky to accurately collect white giant panda feces samples.

Tan Yingchun, Senior Engineer of Wolong National Nature Reserve Administration:Tracking and monitoring it with real-time transmission infrared camera, after discovering it, we immediately organized people to collect its fresh feces.

After obtaining the feces sample of the white panda, the staff quickly sent it to the relevant testing institutions, and after accurate analysis and interpretation by using gene sequencing technology, the gender was finally confirmed.

He Tingmei, Deputy Director of Wolong National Nature Reserve Administration:We passed this sampling and sent it to a professional institution for testing, which showed that it was a male white giant panda.

According to experts, when animal feces are discharged, there will be some shed animal intestinal epithelial cells on the surface of feces. From these cells, researchers can extract the DNA of defecating animals for analysis, usually for species identification and individual identification. More biological information about the white giant panda will be announced after further analysis.

Exploring the habitat of white giant pandas

Live next door to your mother

What kind of natural environment will breed a wild white giant panda? Are its parents or siblings as different in color and appearance as it is? How is its activity law different from that of ordinary pandas? We followed the footsteps of the staff and the lens of the infrared camera to find out.

According to the researchers, wild giant pandas have their own territory like tigers and leopards, and the average territory area of each wild giant panda is about 4 square kilometers. After tracking and measuring the white giant panda, the researchers found that its activity range is about 4.4 square kilometers, and the degree of love and dependence on bamboo is the same as that of ordinary giant pandas.

Liu Mingchong, Senior Engineer of Wolong National Nature Reserve Administration:The main activity area of this white panda appears in the front and back of this tree hole at an altitude of 2650 meters. Next to that tree hole is a walking stick bamboo, and then it is also very close to the cold arrow bamboo.

Infrared camera monitoring found that white giant pandas often move near a narrow hollow tree hole, or climb and play in the tree hole for a long time. This strange tree hole is not exclusive to the white panda. There are at least three pandas, including the white panda, who are keen on this tree hole.

Liu Mingchong, Senior Engineer of Wolong National Nature Reserve Administration:From 2021 to 2023, they all went. For several years in a row, we also found an interesting phenomenon in this tree hole, that is, three giant pandas in the same frame were photographed in our infrared camera at the same time.

In the picture, the white giant panda came to the tree hole again and found that the tree hole had been occupied by two wild giant pandas with normal coat color. They were one big and one small. According to the on-site behavior, the monitoring personnel judged that they were mother-child relations. The white giant panda stopped and seemed to want to join in the play, trying to approach them quietly from the bushes on the side of the tree hole. However, before the white panda approached, it was alarmed by the panda cubs and violently drove the white panda away. This fleeting, seemingly ordinary scene has made the staff discover the mystery of a special relationship between them.

Liu Mingchong, Senior Engineer of Wolong National Nature Reserve Administration:The female panda seems to have found it. She seems to hear a sound in the tree hole, and then she has an action to send an instruction to the little panda, that is, the little panda will hurry to drive away the white panda. Then according to this form, it is very rare because three cats are in the same box. We speculate that the giant panda standing in the tree hole should be their mother.

According to the previous monitoring results, the white giant panda and the adult giant panda in the picture have lived side by side for many years, coexisting in harmony, and their activity trajectories have overlapped many times. This situation is almost impossible between two strange wild giant pandas unless they have direct kinship.

Monitoring findings

A variety of wild animals gather in the habitat of the white panda.

The infrared camera deployed in the giant panda habitat sends back data, besides the white giant panda, there are also moving images of other wildlife friends. Peking University’s scientific research team is conducting field research in the local area, and we also follow experts to continue to explore the wild home of the white giant panda and see which neighbors it has.

In the picture, this tree hole is not lonely even when the giant panda family is away. In addition to the small beast panda that often appears with the giant panda, the porcupine who is dressed all over and reckless also visits. As a Xiong Ke family, the Asian black bear also showed great interest in this tree hole. Combined with the pictures taken by other infrared cameras, the Asian black bear family lives in the mountains about a few hundred meters away from the white giant panda. Compared with the white giant panda’s yellow and white fur, the Asian black bear has maintained its natural background color and is very pure black with its three cubs. Although the fierce name is abroad, the Asian black bear, whose parents live together, is a neat family and depends on each other, showing its warm and loving side.

In another picture, a furry snow leopard strode into the habitat of a white giant panda. This snow leopard has been recorded for many years and bred many times. At present, it lives in a cave near the white giant panda habitat with three cubs, and is often photographed by infrared cameras as a family going out together and strolling on the top of mountains and white clouds.

In fact, in addition to Asian black bears and snow leopards, wolves, tigers and leopards are distributed in the habitat of white giant pandas and its vicinity, except tigers.

Li Sheng, Research Scientist of Peking University Life College:In addition to the wild white giant panda, there are ordinary black and white giant pandas, and a variety of large and medium-sized carnivores live in this area, including Asian black bears, wolves and snow leopards distributed at higher altitudes, and leopards and jackals distributed at lower altitudes. In addition, there are some carnivores, including red fox, leopard cat, red panda, etc. They all live in the same habitat with these giant pandas.

With so many wild animals gathered together, why can the giant panda, which looks naive, live in it safely? In addition, how do beasts get along with each other in such a not-so-vast area where "head-to-head encounters" may occur at any time? Will they keep fighting when they meet?

Li Sheng, a researcher at Peking University College of Life Sciences:Between animals of the same species, they fight each other for territory and spouses, especially in estrus. But among carnivores of different species, for large bears like giant pandas, apart from jackals that prey in groups, they may occasionally threaten giant pandas, and other carnivores like Asian black bears and snow leopards distributed in this area are difficult to pose threats and harm to pandas. (Reporter Li Gang Zhou Yafeng　)