It has often served as China's national symbol, appeared on Chinese Gold Panda coins since 1982 and as one of the five Fuwa mascots of the 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing.

[3] The closest candidate is the Nepali word ponya, possibly referring to the adapted wrist bone of the red panda, which is native to Nepal.

Some linguists argue, in this construction, "bear" instead of "cat" is the base noun, making the name more grammatically and logically correct, which have led to the popular choice despite official writings.

[12][13] These studies show it diverged about 19 million years ago from the common ancestor of the Ursidae;[14] it is the most basal member of this family and equidistant from all other extant bear species.

In areas with a high concentration of medium-to-large-sized mammals—such as domestic cattle, a species known to degrade the landscape—the giant panda population is generally low.

By the Pleistocene, climate change affected panda populations, and the subsequent domination of modern humans led to large-scale habitat loss.

[54] The average giant panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 31 lb) of bamboo shoots a day to compensate for the limited energy content of its diet.

[59][60] Genome sequencing of the giant panda suggests that the dietary switch could have initiated from the loss of the sole umami taste receptor, encoded by the genes TAS1R1 and TAS1R3 (also known as T1R1 and T1R3), resulting from two frameshift mutations within the T1R1 exons.

While primarily herbivorous, the giant panda still retains decidedly ursine teeth and will eat meat, fish, and eggs when available.

In captivity, zoos typically maintain the giant panda's bamboo diet, though some will provide specially formulated biscuits or other dietary supplements.

[66] Although adult giant pandas have few natural predators other than humans, young cubs are vulnerable to attacks by snow leopards, yellow-throated martens,[67] eagles, feral dogs, and the Asian black bear.

Other possible competitors include but is not limited to, the Eurasian wild pig (Sus scrofa), Chinese goral (Naemorhedus griseus) and the Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus).

[70] A captive female died from toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by an obligate intracellular parasitic protozoan known as Toxoplasma gondii that infects most warm-blooded animals, including humans.

[72] The giant panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly province of Sichuan.

The low nutrition quality of bamboo means pandas need to eat more frequently, and due to their lack of major predators they can be active at any time of the day.

Scent marks and odors are used to spread information about sexual status, whether a female is in estrus or not, age, gender, individuality, dominance over territory, and choice of settlement.

[87][88] Because they are solitary mammals and their breeding season is so brief, female pandas secrete chemical cues in order to let males know their sexual status.

[88] Male pandas also secrete chemical signals that include information about their sexual reproductivity and age, which is beneficial for a female when choosing a mate.

[89] Pandas can assess an individual's dominance status, including their age and size, via odor cues and may choose to avoid a scent mark if the signaler's competitive ability outweighs their own.

The gestation period is somewhere between 95 and 160 days - the variability is due to the fact that the fertilized egg may linger in the reproductive system for a while before implanting on the uterine wall.

[32] When the cub is first born, it is pink, blind, and toothless,[32] weighing only 90 to 130 g (3.2 to 4.6 oz), or about ⁠1/800⁠ of the mother's weight,[11] proportionally the smallest baby of any placental mammal.

The cubs can eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year.

[101] The technique for freezing the sperm in liquid nitrogen was first developed in 1980 and the first birth was hailed as a solution to the dwindling availability of giant panda semen, which had led to inbreeding.

[101][104] As of 2009, it is expected that zoos in destinations such as San Diego in the United States and Mexico City will be able to provide their own semen to inseminate more giant pandas.

[122] In the 2020s, certain "celebrity pandas" have gained a cult following amongst internet users, with dedicated fan accounts existing to keep tabs on the animals.

After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time.

[132] In 2012, Earthwatch Institute, a global nonprofit that teams volunteers with scientists to conduct important environmental research, launched a program called "On the Trail of Giant Panda".

[133] Efforts to preserve the panda bear populations in China have come at the expense of other animals in the region, including snow leopards, wolves, and dholes.

Establishing the new protected area in the Sichuan Province also gives various other endangered or threatened species, like the Siberian tiger, the possibility to improve their living conditions by offering them a habitat.

[138] Other species who benefit from the protection of their habitat include the snow leopard, the golden snub-nosed monkey, the red panda and the complex-toothed flying squirrel.