Giant panda baby turned out to be `` too early born ''
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Adults of the giant panda , which are popular because of their lovely appearance, are about 120-150 cm long, while newborn babies are only 15 cm long and weigh only 90-130 g. Duke University research has shown that panda babies, which are surprisingly small compared to adults, are born very immature compared to other animals.
Comparative skeletal anatomy of neonatal ursids and the extreme altriciality of the giant panda-Li--Journal of Anatomy-Wiley Online Library
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/joa.13127
Giant Panda Cubs Are Born Shockingly Small-Turns Out They're 'Undercooked'
https://www.sciencealert.com/all-giant-panda-cubs-are-basically-born-premature-and-that-s-why-they-re-so-small
Adult pandas weigh about 100kg, but newborn pandas weigh about 90-130g, just as heavy as a cat baby. Newborn panda babies are pink with no hair and make a squeaky and cute cry. Also, as soon as you are born you can not open your eyes, it will take about one month after birth to become clearly visible.
The following movie shows the situation immediately after the panda ' Shangshan ' was born at Ueno Zoo on June 12, 2017.
Panda baby, turned out to be female Ueno Zoo-YouTube
A little pink creature that is clinging to the mother's panda's stomach is the baby panda.
You can see the slightly darker hairs, but they have not yet become clear. Although he is swaying, his eyes are still open.
This is the appearance of the baby transferred to the incubator. I can't seem to walk yet ...
The state of being lifted by the keeper looks even like a separate creature from the adult panda.
At first glance, a panda baby looks like a fetus. In fact, the weight ratio of panda babies to adult animals is about 1: 900, and the average weight ratio of placental mammals to adult animals is about 1:26. Can be said to be born in a small state. The too small size of a panda at birth seems to have plagued biologists for many years.
Bears generally have small babies, but pandas are particularly prominent, and the difference in size between babies and adults is that they have egg platypus eyes and babies that raise babies in bags It is said that it can not be seen other than kind .
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So a team from Duke University biologists Peishu Li and Kathleen Smith looked at the skeleton of a panda baby. In general, breeding panda babies are invaluable, and it is not easy to get the panda skeleton because all babies are raised with great care. However, the skeletons of five baby pandas, who died shortly after being born at the Smithsonian Zoo in the 1980s, were preserved, and the researchers were able to CT scan two of them.
In addition, the research team as a comparison grizzly bear , sloth bear , polar bears , red pandas , Coati , African Wild Dog , arctic fox was conducted, the CT scan also for the newborn dog. The research team made a 3D model of all skeletons and carefully analyzed the degree of ossification , bone growth level, whether teeth were formed, the state of skull sticking, etc.
Regarding the reason that bear family children are born in a relatively small state, there is a hypothesis that `` If the bear's gestation period overlaps with hibernation, the fasting period may lead to premature birth of the baby '', and even pandas that do not hibernate It has been pointed out that the features of premature birth were inherited during the evolution process. However, when the research team analyzed many newborns of mammals, it was found that babies in the bear family had developed skeletons to the same level as other mammals. In other words, bear babies are born prematurely, not small, but after a full pregnancy period.
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However, the team noted that the only exception was the newborn panda. The skeleton of the panda babies was similar to that of dog babies, but their development was only about 70% of that of dogs. Smith says that panda babies are `` similar to the 28-week fetus in humans '', and that usually after a 40-week gestation period is born at only 28 weeks. And expressed that
Bears are generally characterized by embryos that float in the uterus for long periods of time and are slow to implant. However, pandas have a shorter pregnancy period after implantation than other bears, and although they follow the same developmental process as other mammals, they seem to have given birth before growing sufficiently. 'Baby pandas are basically immature,' Li said.
It is unclear why panda babies are born immature, but the research team points out that it may be related to the growing size of bears in the past 20 million years. While the size of the adult animal has grown, the size at birth has not changed from the conventional size, and as a result, it may be born too immature compared to the adult animal.
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