Giant panda to digest cellulose is ascribed to the microbes in its gut. Pandas are born with sterile intestines and require bacteria obtained from their mother's feces to digest vegetation. The giant panda is a "highly specialized" animal with "unique adaptations", and has lived in bamboo forests for millions of years. The average giant panda eats as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 lb) of bamboo shoots a day to compensate for the limited energy content of its diet. Ingestion of such a large quantity of material is possible because of the rapid passage of large amounts of indigestible
Qinling panda bamboo diet. Even though it is not fully known what toxicants it has been exposed it is determined that it was heavy metal from the atmospheric deposition. Thus, the conservation of the Qinling pandas may be compromised in the future due to the issues of air pollution of China. Qinling panda The Qinling panda ("Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis") is a subspecies of the giant panda, discovered in the 1960s but not recognized as a subspecies until 2005. Disregarding the nominate subspecies, it is the first giant panda subspecies to be recognized. It differs from the more familiar nominate subspecies by its