Why Pandas Are Impressively Bad at Existing

Gift a lifetime or yearly membership to Nebula here:
go.nebula.tv/g...
Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: nebula.tv/vide...
Patreon: ( / realscience )
Instagram: ( / stephaniesammann )
Images Courtesy of Getty Images
Thanks to our Patreon Supporters:
Eric Ypsilantis
Robert Thompson
Keith Skipper
References:
[1]www.sciencedir....
[2] www.nature.com...
[3] www.sciencedir...
[4] academic.oup.c...
[5] journals.plos....
[6] journals.plos....
[7] www.sciencedir...
[8] pmc.ncbi.nlm.n....
[9] journals.asm.o...
[10] wwf.panda.org/...
[11] www.pnas.org/d...
[12] academic.oup.c...
[13] www.researchga...

[@mykhailohohol8708]

the fact that panda survived 6-7 million years on bamboo is already impressive.

[@andrewreynolds912]

Ikr?

[@tuffstarr1026]

Exactly. So what's her point?

[@experience741]

Because no predators and competition with other species of herbivores

[@unvergebeneid]

@@tuffstarr1026 "pandas deserve to go extinct" has become a popular edge lord thing to say and apparently this channel is trying to capitalise on that. Of course seeing evolution through a moralising lens is the opposite of Real Science[tm].

[@TWJCole]

And to think that in our lifetime we might be witnessing evolution run it's course for Pandas is hard to grasp

[@Z4KIUS]

Pandas and Koalas are pretty amazing in picking a sustenance niche that makes basically no sense

[@Kunfucious577]

Not sure which is worse. I’ve heard koalas are literally the dumbest animals on earth but at least they can survive on their own.

[@Z4KIUS]

@Kunfucious577 they won't recognize their food if it isn't attached to the tree anymore but at least they're making babies

[@rais1953]

Unlike pandas koalas are very well equipped to digest their diet of eucalypt leaves. They are also very good at living in trees and reproduce quite well. I'm not sure there is any truth in the idea that they're dumb. Marsupials generally aren't the sharpest tools in the shed but without environmental destruction by humans they are good survivors.

[@Benson_aka_devils_advocate_88]

If a food source is plentiful something is going to take advantage of it.

[@MSTavares]

@@rais1953 If I remember correctly, the idea of Koalas being dumb/ the dumbest animal on Earth comes from the size of their brain, specifically the Brain to Body Size Ratio

[@artawhirler]

Stephanie: "It really looks like pandas are just simply bad at surviving." Pandas: "Which part of '6 million years' didn't you understand"? 🙂

[@hafirenggayuda]

And their current situation caused by modern civilization disturbing their (long) established ecosystem. Panda not really failed evolution, we humans are the one who fail them

[@me-df9re]

It's always human fault if looked closely. Destroyed whole ecosystem. Yet humans just blames everything else except itself.

[@alicethemadrabbit1842]

Yup! If the goal of evolution is to exist, every organism alive right now is winning! For Pandas being cute and docile was the evolutionary advantage that made humans want to protect them and care for them.

[@AveCaesar2025]

@@alicethemadrabbit1842 Pandas are not specifically docile, they WILL kill a human and they have. There are keepers without a limb due to a panda and no keeper will go in with an adult - especially a male - without back-up.

[@alicethemadrabbit1842]

@@AveCaesar2025 ooooh i did not know that. I will have for sure lost a limb trying to pet one. 😬

[@mustansirsalik]

Real Science: Pandas Are Impressively Bad at Existing Pandas (after chilling for millions of years): Hold my bamboo

[@WestbrickFansGotNoBrains]

They are threatened now… humans primarily the china people are trying their best to help them

[@pedrovaz6451]

@@WestbrickFansGotNoBrains yes, but most of it comes from habitat destruction, poaching and so on which is our fault

[@waqasahmed3115]

Pause??

[@nazeer123-p1u]

She's panicking to defend her non sens beliefs.

[@Hi-HK]

This is my favorite comment.

[@deltabeta5527]

This video is a propaganda against panda's. Panda doesn't eat bamboo, Panda eats Chinese food, like noodles, momo's and sometimes cookies. I know this truth because I've seen a documentry called Kung fu Panda

[@golfrelax9795]

I know right. Panda in this channel is AI generated. Not real. This video is misguided. Panda is intelligence and even know how to kungfu. Even though sometimes it is a little stupid

[@msmaria5039]

Don't forget We Bare Bears.

[@eve2124]

You might even say is a progapanda.

[@solomonn1228]

I too vouch for this person.They out to tarnish the panda name yet clearly pandas love noodles

[@SomeBioniclewithaLaptop-w7s]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@HungLeeBio]

Pandas are playing 5D chess, the bamboo strategy was only a stepping stone for the true goal of being 'too cute to fail'.

[@_Ve_98]

Cats also did that except they didn't even need to. Now all the planet is full of small and fluffy weapons of mass biodiversity destruction.

[@Sparkanp]

For real, my buddy always jokes about how cats essentially tricked us into thinking they need to be taken care of, CAUSE LOOK HOW CUTE ​@@_Ve_98

[@T-P.]

They invested all their character points on cuteness as method of survival

[@sharonwyus1]

Obviously they have succeeded by doing a great job in the cuteness sphere for getting a perfect score on the "so cute!!" comment, and a too-cute-to-forget FedEx 300+ passenger jet/truck designed to just fly two pandas between China and the US 😂 Oh, not to mention that quite a few of them are high net worth individuals who bring in big bucks just by being themselves 😅

[@esmeraldaweatherwaxe970]

it worked for dogs and cats..

[@Spielkalb-von-Sparta]

A panda walks into a restaurant and orders some bamboo for dinner. He finishes his meal, pulls out a gun, blows away the waiter and then walks out the door. When somebody asks him why he did that, he said, "Look it up." So they did and it said, "Panda - eats shoots and leaves."

[@realscience]

Lol

[@Spielkalb-von-Sparta]

@@realscience Awesome video btw, I really liked your funny style of presenting the facts! 🐻

[@Alien-_-ゝ]

​@@Spielkalb-von-Sparta that was really funny

[@RebelCowgirl01]

😂

[@Internettoughguy547]

Good 1 that

[@photon021]

You are ignoring the main point, they evolved to live in a dense bamboo forest where nothing else grows and because bamboo is slightly toxic, fewer animal species prefer to eat it. Which means no predators, almost zero competition for food and many other benefits, if they could come up with a way to digest bamboo. They did so and in the process just like every other specie they evolved perfectly. I see them as genius that they choose to just chill and eat when other animals are out there risking their lives just to eat and sustain their population. And about panda's extinction, they were doing just fine for millions of years until humans being humans started something foolish in the 18th century and put every live on earth at risk.

[@maizegod6840]

👏👏

[@strider8662]

Pandas actually one of the few times where humans dont have anything to do with. Picking a niche life style like this means they are very vulnerable to change.

[@mikemike6182]

Imagine how many species die, during cllimate changes occurred on our earth history and changes the environment, killing all the species depended on them especially the super niche one like panda and koala.

[@urgardista]

You are absolutely wrong. Totally niche animals, extremely vulnerable to climate change. There was a draught few years ago, no bamboo shoots, their number decreased quickly....

[@majorbruster5916]

@@photon021 I agree to a point. I have to disagree (politely) that they evolved to live in a dense bamboo forest, because that sounds too much like a conscious choice. As their history shows, they were ordinary bears to begin with, but some event or series of events may have caused the species to frequent or to increasingly retreat into the bamboo which, at that time, was probably more of a refuge rather than a food source. For a carnivore, having to eat a toxic plant must have been brought about by dramatic changes to its existence outside the bamboo forests. Competition, predation, habitat perturbation, famine, any one of these pressures could have been the driver for the pandas to enter the forest, which, as you said, offered many benefits. It might have been a safe environment in which to deliver and raise cubs. Who knows? But it may have been easier for cubs to make the switch to herbivory. Whatever the cause, it proved beneficial to the survival of the species.

[@lasercraft32]

"Why do you exist!?" "Well nobody else is gonna eat all this bamboo, someone's gotta do it."

[@EKCO0310]

Imagine being so bad at existing that the most intelligent animal in the entirety of existence, will take care of you and do everything it takes to make sure your species and you doesn't die. Seems to me they got things figured out

[@MickPosch]

Right! As an evolutionary strategy, "Humans find me cute" beats "Rolls around in poop and eats a ridiculously low energy food source".

[@EKCO0310]

@MickPosch lmao

[@5falltv895]

imagine being the most intelligent animal in existence wiping out 90% of other animals and environments and gaslighting the wayyyy older animals designs

[@kunguru1058]

Pandas are secretly the final boss, but it wears a cute stupid disguise so we won’t catch on…

[@JoshTrager-j9g]

​@@5falltv895Yeah, we humans have an awfully high opinion of ourselves, don't we?

[@bloodypommelstudios7144]

"We covered mice in poo and they didn't cuddle as much" Yeah I wouldn't want cuddle if I was covered in poo either.

[@optimust]

Underrated insight 😂

[@hjglockner]

Me neither

[@mrsullied]

Depends who I'd be told to cuddle with. Not proud of this.

[@Wilhelm-100TheTechnoAdmiral]

You have no imagination, young padawan 😤

[@icantbreathe-x5b]

Why not?

[@gormauslander]

Pandas are a reminder that evolution does not "think". Evolution is a random process. Countless extinct animals show how often the plan doesn't work. You begin to understand how lucky the living are.

[@mtrnkbsw-wd3eg]

Makes me believe more and more that everything is accidental.

[@hugueskanda2785]

Noway, there's no accident Pandas are just an accident, maybe the fact of falling on their head break something within them

[@truthbetold89]

Existence and extinction are part of the plan. If Pandas bred easily, then they will not give enough time for bombo plants to regenerate its growth, which is their only food source, unlike other bear species.

[@TheSlazzer]

@@mtrnkbsw-wd3eg it's a non-random selection that happens because of random mutations on the DNA-level. Also, there are some random accidents that have nothing or little to do with benefitial traits, like i dunno some very unfortunate animal getting hit by a lightning, *but the point is that over long stretches of time* - over many generations of a species (humans, for example have had ~12,000 generations), those kind of random accidents cancel out and you're left with benefitial traits being inherited and spreading through the population of a species - evolution taking place.

[@keithwellerlounge74]

If this is the case, I'm getting fed up of every single paleontology video containing the phrase 'this adaptation may have evolved for...'

[@leoli2450]

Fun fact: Because of the lack of salt in Bamboo, Pandas have to acquire their sodium from eating grass, fruits, even small insects. This lead to Pandas that wander into human settlement licking kitchenwares and cooking pots for salt. This was interepreted by villagers to be eating iron/metal, earning their ancient name "Iron-eaters".

[@alyssaduan9639]

食铁兽

[@peacecraft3449]

Humans: *absolutely devastate Pandas environment.* Pandas: *Become endangered* Humans: "Wow what's wrong with these Pandas?!"

[@CamiKite]

Pandas have fallen into an evolutive trap, but eventually one thing will save them: Their cuteness

[@OsirisLord]

Evolution is a purely reactive process, it evolves animals based on the current environmental pressures not future ones. Specialization is always an evolutionary trap but it keeps happening over and over again organisms want their survival to be as easy as possible so evolving into a food niche that no one else wants always makes sense at the time.

[@CharliMorganMusic]

I don't see it; there may always be a small captive population, but their extinction in the wild seems inevitable.

[@TJSaw]

Nope. Cuteness has its shelf life. And they’re not that cute either. They’re dumb and clumsy. No one has patience for that.

[@turtlesoup8134]

@@TJSaw They generate billions of revenue. In China, there are Panda celebrities that can boost and entire province tourism, Do you think panda is going extinct with these revenue for humans? Is that not a success in evolution?

[@MijinLaw]

@@OsirisLord Yes this. I was surprised it wasn't mentioned in the video, because the pattern of generalist -> specialist -> extinct is a common one in evolutionary history. Heck it could be considered a key part of natural selection at the species level.

[@pclouds]

Somebody had to eat bamboos. Pandas bit the bullet and stepped up. Thanks Pandas!

[@savagesarethebest7251]

I like fried bamboo shoots, but I don't eat it as often as I want to.

[@hafirenggayuda]

Joke aside, you're kinda right there. Bamboo plants may destroy biodiversity and other food sources if left unchecked

[@rogerj.fugere3570]

God: I need to assign a group to eat cyanide infused bamboo…. Pandas: I volunteer as tribute!

[@zz-ep6pd]

The most sensible reason! Ah 😮

[@smalltime0]

There are other animals that eat bamboo, but they're all herbivores.

[@SibusisoBiyela]

Panda does something stupid. Researchers: Brilliant evolutionary gambit!

[@victoriancuddler]

just wanted to let you know this comment made me laugh harder than I intended to. Got me cackling.

[@alexbosse8528]

Thats a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays for them.

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

Except it was, and I'm tired to pretend that its not just because cultural osmosis (or brainrot) looking at excuses to remove the blame for the endargement of nature due to our actions.

[@AnimaIlKingdom]

My channel also makes videos about animals.☺🥰

[@chiquita683]

Like some humans, Pandas chose to go against evolution and become vegans to be kind to animals and are slowly going extinct 😆

[@Roadwarior2]

I mean only the Polar Bear is a carnivore, all the other bears are omnivores that largely feed on fruits and shoots with the occasional meat protein thrown in. So I don’t think it’s a massive stretch for one of them to become full on herbivorous.

[@lucascheng6674]

True but just bamboo is just dumb, they don’t even eat other plants

[@bluester7177]

​@@lucascheng6674they do, it's in the video, they eat fruit if they find it.

[@lucascheng6674]

@ my bad , but the point where they are dumb still stands though, they are biological omnivores so there should be a lot of prey animals where they live

[@pcl1559]

@@lucascheng6674 they do eat meat, mostly in the springs. They sometimes go in to villages to eat chicken, dogs, smaller farm animals. Villagers can get compensated if they can prove a panda ate their animal, so people living in that area have sensor video cameras near their livestock.

[@lucascheng6674]

@ damn, I never knew that

[@蘇慕歡-r2f]

I am convinced that one day pandas will be leased as Earth’s diplomatic gifts to aliens.

[@GaboH-h7s]

"why would God create pandas?" I mean look at them, why not? They are the cutest

[@Woolymammoth-db1lt]

id also ask god "why make the wasp"? it made charles darwin question god

[@naz6james570]

Yeah wtf God?? I'm down with the cute thing but mating chances only in between 2 days over a year depending on luck is crazy.. now Im wondering if thats how they be getting those blacked eyes.

[@Diegos1707]

God created pandas to see if humans have empathy and sympathy enough to keep them from going extinct is a test

[@computernoise2209]

@@Woolymammoth-db1lt "Why did you make wasps?" God: "They're pollinators, like bees and mosquitos, and so balance their species existence with plant interactions. Most species of wasps are non-aggressive, but since evolution is how an animal takes on and grows from the physics of the cosmos, environments can lend some species towards making aggressive behavior beneficial for stability. Though it can be difficult for the limitations of human consciousness to see these fluid affects, or at least not without communing to their future progeny via history and taking a structured and critical analysis of their environment, having themselves to believe the universe as stable, unchanging, physical rules they could learn, which is why the Christians and the Muslims created all the various scientific fields for study." "Why did you make pandas?" God: "I didn't, bamboo did. So you'll have to take that up with it." "Why did you create Creationists?" God: "I didn't. A lack of imagination did." "Why did you create people who don't use punctuation or capital letters?" God: "I didn't. The public schools did."

[@PurpleOpinionM]

​@@Diegos1707so what about the other extinction events we were never even there for?

[@Cyrathil]

"It sounds like the Panda is just too stupid to know it should die" Ah, so it's a koala situation, then.

[@paulmurphy8549]

Fires and chlamydia koala biggest enemy

[@BatkoNashBandera774]

¿porque no los dos?

[@recoil53]

Looking like a plush toy is an evolutionary advantage - others will take care of that 'survival' thing for you.

[@kismetau]

Or is it the cleverest? Get humans to feed, protect them and all they have to do is sit back look cute and be as dopey as possible 😅

[@esmeraldaweatherwaxe970]

more like the trumper fanbase..

[@vincentx2850]

The way pandas eat is unlike those of herbivorous mammals, they are very similar to the route taken by caterpillars. Pandas and caterpillars are basically juicing machines. They ignore the rough, tough to digest fibres altogether, break up plant materials using their exceptionally strong mandibles, and squeeze out the protein and fats for maximum efficiency. This is the best way to tackle tough, often toxic plant materials. In contrast, many ungulates like horses and cows are often very sensitive to toxins and die easily on small doses.

[@blessedbeauty2293]

- 0:44 They're *also, THE WORST* MOTHERS, EVER !!. Well, probably not the worst (at least in the animal kingdom), but still, pretty bad! 🐼🐼🐼

[@CX-867]

Panda mothers actually take care of their babies full heartedly. But in wild life, conditions usually doesn’t allow them to take care of twins at the same time, because little ones are always born immaturely.

[@jctai100]

15:01 How can they be begging to be extinct if they've been here for millions of years? They will go extinct under a human construct of closed environments but they were doing just fine until we ran the show.

[@huyanhpham1445]

Yeah. Many mighty ancient tiger species went extinct. So I think any species have “equal chance” of going extinct

[@Seastallion]

Panda's are somewhat lucky that humans are suckers for cute things, and they happen to have a cuteness factor.

[@esmeraldaweatherwaxe970]

the cuteness thing is the mammal way, it's how we take care of our own young and not harm other people's offspring.

[@stonerwitchu]

ever heard of a warrior panda

[@Seastallion]

@@stonerwitchu You mean Po, the Dragon Warrior?

[@thelemurofmadagascar9183]

If they were so lucky, we wouldn't have destroyed their habitat in the first place.

[@spindoctor6385]

Perspective is a wonderful thing. It could easily be said that adapting to a food source that is so full of cyanide that no other animal will touch it is a great move. Not over breeding also keeps their food source plentiful. The mistake here is not anything to do with evolution, it is ascribing purpose or motive to the process. Whether or not that is intentional, it is almost always where the description goes. Right from the question in the thumbnail it is here. Evolution can't make a "mistake" It has no end goal. It has no aim.

[@Rebuswind]

Wild life biologist here. This video is such a weird take on Panda. Evolution just does what evolution does, there is no "do someone dirty". It is a passive selection, there is no goal or purposes besides being alive. Panda was fine until human start to destroy their habitat. Many animals are using eat a lot and move very little strategies and they are all fine. Every species will inevitably go extinct. There is no such thing as "begging to extinct". Panda is almost immune to fail damage, they have no natural predators in where they live, they were fine until we human start to fuck them over. They drop and fail because they know they can. Panda parents will encourage young panda to drop from tree or fail just to help them to learn how durable they are. Snow leopards/mountain goats and many other mountain area mammals do the same. The very fact that they haven't been changing much for 3 million years shows they are good adaptations. There is only one measurement for evolution success, that is "are they alive". If they are alive, they are good. I fail to say any "real science" in this video.

[@anniehills3580]

Maybe not so much science, but super informative!!❤

[@Rebuswind]

@@anniehills3580misinformation are information too. Informative doesn't mean true.

[@DaughterofPersephone0630]

But doesn't such a niche lifestyle makes them susceptible to change? Which is why their extinction rate is much higer than that of some other species? I'm not trying to sound condescending (I'm no specialist), I'm just curious

[@bluester7177]

​@@DaughterofPersephone0630most animals have niche adaptations, and we are all susceptible to extinction, we humans are going to do it to ourselves, that's seems worse.

[@Robohead-z6z]

Reminds me of a Reddit comment that said nature did us women dirty or made us into punching bags. It was so face palming. Nature/evolution didn’t made us physical weaker so men can hurt us. Heck it’s men who are more likely to be victims of PA (with the exception of DV).

[@eipi--10]

2:31 it sure seems like they are an evolutionary accident Did you forgot what master oogway said: "There are no accidents."

[@michealwestfall8544]

I think you're being unfair to pandas' evolutionary traits. They're large so other predators don't mess with them. But because of their large size they need to eat a lot of food. And there is not much to eat in a bamboo forest. So evolving to eat poisonous bamboo is amazing. And there low birthrate makes sense if there were hundreds of thousands of them. A low birthrate stablizes population and prevents them from starving.

[@adriani9432]

Not really. Pandas have no natural predators because they live in an area without large predators. A tiger would have no problem taking down a panda if it ever encountered one.

[@godfistleesin1971]

@@adriani9432a panda's bite force is still pretty strong although the tiger could definitely kill a panda it's not worth the effort let alone risk a serious injury from a bite or claw swipe (not sure if pandas can do this one with any competency ) and who knows if panda meat is even a meal option for tigers as they wouldn't start a fight for no reward unless it's to defend their territory and in such situations the tiger is better off just scaring the panda away than starting a death match with it so i think even if tigers were to be present in the wild with pandas it wouldn't change much for the pandas anyways

[@brightBoss]

@@godfistleesin1971 if Tigers lived in a bamboo forest with little to no large animals to feed on all the pandas will get wiped out in months lol

[@aottadelsei980]

I agree, they panda consume more protein than the average black/brown bear which makes up about 20% of the diet while panda can have more the 50% of there diet made up of protein, which is more along with wolves and domestic cats which are carnivores where bears are omnivores. Pandas also need less territory which is about 4 to 6 square km while a female North America black bear has a home range of 6.5 to 26 square kilometers As for predation risk, the oldest possible fossil evidence of a panda from a fossilized pseudo thumb dates them back to about 6 Mya, tiger evolved about 3 Mya. Keep in mind that tigers have a hard time dealing with sloth bear’s head to head dispite the fact that the Bengal tiger is larger than the south china tiger but pandas are around the same size as sloth bears. Pandas also have all of their teeth unlike sloth bears which are missing their top two front teeth (incisors), which enables them to suck up termites and other insects with ease. Due to their diet of insects and fruit, their premolars and molars are smaller than those of other bears. Pandas also have an insane bite force of 1,300 to 1,500 psi which is closer to polar bear(1,200 psi) in power than a black bear of similar size of 800 psi. In fact pound for pound a panda can generate more force with its jaws than a tiger of the same weight. There low reproduction rates also show that they aren’t pray upon that often other wise they would have been extinct by the time tigers evolved. Only a large male south china tiger would have the size to take one on and why would you when Muntjac & sambar deer would be better options. A female south china tiger, leopard, and wolves would never think about attacking a adult panda unless in dire circumstances.

[@kosmosXcannon]

Isn't bamboo one of the fastest growing plants in the world, like you can actually see them growing overnight? In a way they should be able to keep the bamboo population in check with how much they eat. Unfortunately, they seem to not want to exist and go extinct. If it wasn't for human intervention, they probably would have gone extinct.

[@JJ-er1ng]

And here I thought the sunfish intro was scathing...

[@MrBlackSatellite]

Yeah the like to watch ratio versus sub ratio is dropping in most of the videos. This lady keeps making these comments I’m sure the channel will only be relevant for another year at most

[@benejeneb]

Lol so true

[@alantremonti1381]

​@@MrBlackSatelliteWas this written by a panda.

[@JustAnotherAccount8]

@@alantremonti1381 They make a good point though. We're here for 'Real Science', not school yard insults that are already everywhere on the internet.

[@eymaslacker]

The entire video is factual though. The panda is bad at surviving outside of their niche and they do fall a lot out of trees but they also have evolutionary trait that allows them to shrug off those falls.

[@artawhirler]

Stephanie: "The official term for a group of pandas is an 'embarrassment' of pandas." (2:25) Crows: "Hey, that's not so bad. Could be a lot worse." 😂

[@unaffectedbycardeffects9152]

Murder sounds cooler than embarrassment, tho. Not as something to experience, but being a murder of crows is less embarrassing than being an embarrassment of pandas.

[@BatkoNashBandera774]

@@unaffectedbycardeffects9152 Crows are constantly on a murderous spree cause they be grouping often.

[@recoil53]

@@unaffectedbycardeffects9152 And appropriately Goth. A 'murder' of crows is dark and foreboding - a certain type of cool. An 'embarassement' of pandas is the cousin who is still acting like a kid in front of the girls that the 'murder' is trying to impress.

[@freetorobandloot]

Well, a group of baboons are called a congress. That pretty much explains everything that comes out of Washington nowadays. Lol

[@itt2055]

Evolution doesn't have any real laws or regulations it just happens and sometimes it goes horribly wrong, the koala is another evolutionary dead end and are very similar to the panda in their eating habits. There are birds that have evolved to only eat the nectar of a single orchid species. There are literally hundreds of thousands of species that are so specialised that they are constantly on the verge of extinction, so the panda is actually just normal and not that different in the game of life.

[@kjolii]

It's intresting that they are one of few that eat bamboo. And bamboo is growing too much too fast. So from a creationist pov it makes sence that they eat so much. They are important and cute.

[@lewispatton6550]

Oh yeah. They existed for millions of years, now we judge and make fun of them because they are having a hard time living in a world we butchered. Seems fair.

[@JoshTrager-j9g]

Right?

[@ХорхеГарсия-э5е]

I know it might sound crazy, but hundreds of millions of species lived and died before we came along, and the panda looks like one of those that was on their way out anyway.

[@dustmighte]

There's definitely a certain mindset at play here, and it's not a nice one

[@nigellee9541]

Panda is not gonna be the first species adopted into a dead end and then go extinct. Most species did, long before humans ever existed

[@lewispatton6550]

@@ХорхеГарсия-э5е yeah "some" random scientist theorized they would be going extinct without humans ruining their natural habitat. That's a theory, not fact

[@Soshiaircon91]

Panda has evolve very well, panda predicted the internet culture where cute cats and pandas dominate the views and subscriber count.

[@KatonRyu]

Yeah, even their name reflects it: Ailuropoda means 'cat-foot', and the Chinese word for panda translates to 'cat-bear'.

[@swathijayaraman4401]

What I understand is that there is a reason why pandas evolved as such. Evolution works on really long time periods, so for all those years without disturbance, pandas peacefully had the big bamboo forests to themselves, and could reproduce slowly to ensure there is not too many pandas in one forest (as another commenter pointed out). However, this was contingent on things staying relatively constant or only gradually changing as per evolutionary time scales. Just as with any other endangered or extinct animal, its really humans who brought such a fast change that pandas got the short end of the (bamboo) stick.

[@tirahtalib8230]

12:48 "looking for the lowest energy way to get around" what a mood. i would too if I was a fluffy ball like em 😭

[@GugliemoSmith]

Fax 🧃

[@fireaza]

One of my favourite facts about panda stupidity is you can trick them into raising more than one cub at a time, simply by swapping the cubs out when the panda isn't looking.

[@Llkolii]

Thats super funny

[@esmeraldaweatherwaxe970]

that works on other mammals too..

[@CX-867]

Actually the mother knows babies are different because smells are different, so she knows both are her babies

[@rebihuber]

You can do this also by some human dads

[@jansenart0]

I disagree that "pandas are victims of their own evolutionary choices." Pandas are a function of evolutionary pressures. They never had any say or choice or agency regarding the matter of their evolution. A niche developed and they evolved to fill it. Evolution is nothing if not simultaneously both opportunistic and lazy. Pandas were always "good enough" to take advantage of bamboo as it grows and probably flourish during mast years (and likely eat chicks and eggs if abundant enough; our chickens come from the same area as pandas, and their fertility is based on the presence of food and potential mates, which explodes when entire bamboo forests flower, go to seed and die, called "mast years"). Try feeding female pandas lots of raw eggs and chicks, see if that doesn't trigger higher fertility.

[@xBINARYGODx]

quit axtually-ing over some poor word choice that was dont on purpose for entertainment - you dont actually look smart doing this

[@jansenart0]

@@xBINARYGODx Someone has a good point about a thing somewhere? Can't have that, can you?

[@saaarrj]

​@xBINARYGODx and you just seem RUDE AF

[@meg2831]

"Sometime we just have to take care of the idiots amongst us" i feel like i need that on a t-shirt; with a big dumb cute panda on it.

[@jaehparrk]

she rly seem to hate pandas

[@alyssaduan9639]

Make one😭😭will def buy

[@esmeraldaweatherwaxe970]

although... now the idiots are in charge in some countries (hint, stars&stripes) I tend to reconsider the benefits of taking care of all the idiots.. maybe we should have kept their numbers down.

[@CMZneu]

The problem is that in this day and age the environment favors opportunists and not specialists. But hell, surviving on something that is plentiful and nobody wants to eat is by no means a bad strategy and when done optimally is highly effective kinda like in leafcutter ants, though while they technically only eat fungus they can use practically any leafy organic material to grow them so they are kinda extreme generalist in that regard.

[@HULLGRAFFITI]

I can hear Larry David explaining them - "It's a shit bear'

[@chiquita683]

Only the Strong Survive Pandas: Challenge Accepted 🐼

[@dlibby4979]

There is always one weirdo in a family.

[@esmeraldaweatherwaxe970]

in some states it'd weirdo's all the way down the family tree..

[@Curt_Sampson]

02:40 _"Everything evolves for some reason...."_ No. There's no reason at all behind evolution: animals mutate and natural selection eliminates some, depending. There's no need to be perfectly, or even all that well adapted to one's environment; an animal simply needs to be able to survive _well enough_ (and maybe have a bit of luck in what they're competing with) not to die out.

[@foltaa]

i dont like the perspective on pandas this video highlights, they could be considered idiots compared to other animals, but they evolved like this for a reason, eating bamboo worked out for them for 6-7 million years and in my personal opinion i think pandas have a different type of intelligence and you can see it in the way they play around a lot, there arent many animals who take life with such ease even in the way they move. pandas attitude towards our reality is different from almost every other animal and thats why we should treasure them even more. there is tremendous value in what pandas stand for in my heart, and i dont agree with the pragmatic view of them being stupid or undeserving of life, thats just harsh and i think we all learned from when we were kids, that things are often not what they seem at first, pandas seem stupid, but maybe you just have to think about it a bit longer, to get why their existence is actually really important.

[@iz3823]

We could say Pandas have mastered the Zen. If they go extinct, they go. If no, then no. They just are (here)

[@foltaa]

@iz3823 yeah i agree

[@foltaa]

@iz3823 yeah i agree

[@spectre5382]

Dang Stephanie doing a full on hit piece on the Pandas. I'm here for it haha

[@Prism_ism]

😂

[@loopernoodling]

She did a total takedown on the Sun Fish, and discovered she enjoyed it! I wonder what poor defenceless creature she will slap around next? ;-)

[@313soldier313]

@@loopernoodling also did one on sloths and it was a total character assassination too haha.

[@TheodoreBrosevelt]

​@@loopernoodling 🙋🏿‍♂️

[@kbsmith5995]

Pandas: *exist* Stephanie: And I took that personally

[@TheBappin]

Once, while deep in a Graham Hancock-esque rabbit hole on youtube, i came across the theory of pandas being the remnants of a domesticated animal from an very old civilization of humans that has since disappeared. All that was left of those humans was this pet that had been domesticated and genetically altered so much that it couldn't live without human care. In my thc induced state of mind it all made so much sense

[@danielgormley9731]

We GOTTA get you on mushrooms

[@mikeoxlong3676]

I mean. It makes sense. Imagine if 10,000 years from now humans wonder how the hell derpy lovable and far too trusting Golden Retrievers evolved.

[@kassa2681]

Did a panda key your car?

[@roarljkjell7689]

Extremely well made video! Make more of this kind!!!

[@bernovem9385]

Let me tell you that "Giant Panda" in Chinese is 大熊猫, which translates to "Big Bear Cat." It makes sense😉

[@willian4428]

Raccoons are from the same family as bears? WOW didn’t knew that.

[@dagmawitesfaye4298]

Same

[@so-ares]

They are called trash pandas for a reason...

[@MountainsAreCool]

They're called vaskebjørn for a reason

[@mykhailohohol8708]

No, they are not. They are from family Procyonidae, while bears and panda are from family Ursidae. You can see it on the phylogenic tree shown in he video. They do share a common ancestor however.

[@rodrigoneves9166]

@@so-ares, that's because they are closely related to the red panda, which is the "true", and the first to be discovered and classified, Panda. Red pandas are not bears, like raccoons are not, they are from the family "Mustelidae" and bears from "Ursidae", and they are all in the order "Carnivora" along with the Felidae and Canidae families. Raccoons are trash pandas because of red pandas and not giant pandas.

[@jimboy419]

No, things don't evolve "for a reason". They evolve because they could.

[@Chameleonred5]

Evolution is indeed random and does not happen for a purpose. However, the process of evolution takes shape the way it does primarily through environmental constraints. When she says it happens "for a reason," what she means is "there must have been some sort of constraints such that every other version of the panda died out, and this is the only one that survived." Which I'm sure she might have said if she was trying to be as lingually precise as possible, but that's largely unnecessary because of a little skill called "extrapolation." Most humans are capable of figuring out what she means by "for a reason" without needing clarification, and so do not need such a degree of precision in language.

[@jimboy419]

@@Chameleonred5 Right - the "reasons" are during the evolutionary process. I meant that saying "for a reason" can lead people to look for reasons after the process is finished, such as that pandas evolved to keep bamboo from overtaking the forest. This is a common way of thinking about evolution that can be confusing.

[@gablu86]

Not for thousands of generations, barring the occasional genetic disorder.

[@thecomment9489]

No, things evolve for a reason and very often for the betterment of survival.

[@MisterNohbdy]

@@Chameleonred5 you say people don't need it and yet you get people like this guy above me

[@Watch-0w1]

Maybe they were playing the long game. They plan for humanity to care for them. Because theyre so damn cute

[@micahkiyimba8641]

Which is smart

[@ARUNKUMARM-cj8vu]

Evolutionary error - look at the mirror , not at the panda - because we already done more damage than anything 😞

[@RILOVINCO]

So pandas are like the vegetarians in humans they have to spend money and a lot of time of their lives trying to supply and compensate for their lack of nutrients for not eating a carnivore diet, so they are like an evolutionary mistake too right? And they only exist for our amusement.

[@huycasegoodidea]

Maybe I am a panda

[@serdarcam99]

surviving on mac&cheese

[@Alien-_-ゝ]

I am a panda if you remove the cuteness part.

[@James.z-w8x]

Panda's happy life.

[@SilentOne2021]

This is the flaw with humans by imagining that animals have duties as we do, to preserve themselves or their offspring, in nature nobody forces you to exist and if the local biosphere allows a panda to take a chill approach to reproduction, hunting and similar aspects of their life more credit to them. Who knows perhaps not having to chase after other animals mindlessly so you can just bring more energy to yourself via food to keep running after other animals, to produce offspring at same pace as rabbits to completely throw off the balance of ecosystem when predators aren't around instead of chilling and eating bamboo all day and enjoy the surrounding nature at your own leisurely pace sounds like sweet deal. Humans are the "intelligent" species that creates wars with it's own species for resources, over use the planet and animals for their own selfish ends and run their lives stressed by their own invented concepts, rules and errands to make more tiny clones of themselves... I think human would be the last creature I'd ask about how to live life to the fullest, and same goes to the usual prey/predator species at large. Pandas got it right!

[@JaredAustin-j9q]

As humans i am of the opinion that as a species, We have absolutely zero room to talk about another species for being dumb. There are reasons for literally everything you’ve mentioned them doing that is dumb in this video.

[@Jean-Sylvain-v5t]

« There are reasons for literally everything you’ve mentioned them doing that is dumb in this video. » And one of those reasons is stupidity. There are stupid humans just as there are other stupid animals.

[@nicstroud]

What's going on? A Real Science video about an animal whose biology isn't *insane.*

[@artawhirler]

To be fair, the alternative title (at 2:55) DOES say: "The Insanely Bad Biology of The Panda". 🙂

[@latexu95]

2:15 There is actually a good reason why pandas do that: horse feces has certain enzymes that protect them from the cold. Because pandas don't hibernate during winter like many other bears, and they can't get enough insulation from bamboo alone, they have to find other ways to keep themselves warm.🐼💩

[@joemann2178]

Humanity has reached great levels of hypocrisy, when it says Panda's do everything to not survive, when humans have built enough weapons to destroy the whole planet 10 times over for freedom and democracy 🤣

[@robertboeckmann1111]

Regarding the poop… have any researchers looked into the possibility that the pandas are picking up herbivore (horse) gut bacteria when they do this?

[@majorbruster5916]

Only if they ate it. Sure didn't look like it in the video. Good thought, though.

[@esmeraldaweatherwaxe970]

some dogs do this too.. I wonder if they compare notes? (the researchers, not the animals)

[@Da_Juice]

As a Christian, denying the existence of evolution is silly.

[@theawesomest2850]

Same, I don’t get why people act like you can’t believe in God and accept the theory of evolution. Seems like a closed minded way of thinking to think you gotta believe in one or the other

[@JaylaStarr]

Both can be true and I’m not religious,,, why can’t god have created the Big Bang?

[@scottallberry]

@Da_Juice I've always believed God is capable of evolution. If a person believed that he was capable of all things, he is capable of evolution. The Bible was written at a time no one had an understanding of the world around them, it doesn't make it wrong. The Bible doesn't say God created gravity or the atomic theory, regardless. The Bible says he created all things, so that would include the forces that government the universe as well. Science is a means of understanding those forces. Genesis states 7 days to create...but that was before time existed, so 7 days may be 4 billion of our years, not God's. Or it was just what was understood by the writers of the old testament.

[@jordannoell4222]

​@@theawesomest2850Biblical literalists are an extremely odd and disconcertingly large portion of Christians.

[@luc_official]

​@@JaylaStarr Because just because we can't explain something, doesn't mean magic is involved

[@luismount]

I think as much as they adapted to bamboo, they also adapted to eating insects that live within the bamboo which would probably provide a lot of calories for them.

[@shadow-tw1oq]

Panda outsmart humans for thinking them dumb and protect them .

[@MrinmayChakravarty-jf4nr]

😂

[@Here2Enjoy-b8z]

18:40 you keep on saying the animal wants to go extinct, but it has been over 5 million years and they didn't go extinct my themselves right? Or the decline is super duper slow like their metabolism and we are just accelerating it?

[@Mathaze420]

Watch the video again they have the answer on that 😊

[@Reyma777]

I have read that the panda’s pseudo-thumb is actually an ancestral trait of arctoidea. The spectacled bear sometimes have a pseudo-thumb despite being short faced bears that are more closely related to typical ursine bears than to pandas.

[@andrewgan557]

That's what make both the spectacled bear and panda astonishing is that they are both the last surviving members of each of their own subfamily of bears the short faced bears and the running bear which includes the largest known bears and the only bears in Africa.

[@yassineanassine7905]

​Atlas bear ? You mean sub-Saharan Africa ​@@andrewgan557

[@anniehills3580]

Wow! You know bears!😊

[@andrewgan557]

@@anniehills3580 I regularly watch moth media and extinct zoo on you tube

[@yassineanassine7905]

​@@andrewgan557atlas bear ? You mean in sub-Saharan Africa.

[@lismarie9011]

Pandas may have found the most inefficient way to avoid extinction but they DID find a way to get everyone else on board with saving them: Being super cute 🥰

[@chancegivens9390]

Eh. They seem to do well enough. They've been alive for millions of years and would be doing fine if people didn't fuck with their habitat. Leave it to people to blame the animal for being unable to adapt to a world that people change to suit their own needs.

[@Appletank8]

Didn't the records show they were already declining long before humans showed up?

[@hafirenggayuda]

Remind me to a comic where a guy scream/complain "Why do bears keep attacking our settlement" while bulldozing through forrest

[@stax6092]

Exactly. Thank you.

[@One.Zero.One101]

It's like when humans shoot a tiger for attacking a villager. Well, you did build your hut inside their territory.

[@TauchTobi]

19:22 extremely smart? Tell me what you want... A species which is destroying its sources to live is everything but smart

[@HoneyBoom]

I am now requesting a sequel to this: Why Koalas Are Impressively Bad at Existing

[@dulio12385]

Pandas should be labeled anthropocene dependents alongside domestic cattle. Essentially they survive because humanity conciously allows it. If we even forget that they exist, never mind actually killing them on purpose, they'd go extinct in short order.

[@gauraviyengar7804]

Except that they were thriving throughout vast swathes of Asia before Homo Sapiens even existed there. They are endangered because of humans destroying their habitat, nothing else.

[@CesarPar-d9u]

De hecho, los humanos los han puesto en peligro de extinción. Posiblemente los pandas vivirían cientos de miles de años más, pero en los últimos dos siglos se ha reducido su población al punto de que si no los mantienen en determinados lugares pueden extinguirse definitivamente.

[@bluester7177]

They would probably be doing fine if we didn't exist, humans actions have caused the most extinction in the last 500 years and is endangering and causing the decline of half of the species of animals currently alive.

[@SomeGuy-ty7kr]

@@CesarPar-d9u in evolutionary terms, a hundred thousand years is basically a blink. Pandas were doomed from the start, because sooner or later something was going to out compete them in their niche. Lucky them, it happened to be humans, and we find them adorable.

[@physicals]

Blaming pandas for not having survivability is ignoring that humans destroyed their habitats.

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

Pandas 🐼 make sense when you remember virtually all herbivores cannot grasp bamboo 🎍, as they don't have hands of the right size, so suck at eating it. So they have no competition. And no competition makes even a terrible lifestyle viable.

[@Appletank8]

TBF, not a lot of hands in general in the animal kingdom.

[@Aqeel2SAf]

Your documentary style is amazing

[@chiaojian6122]

The video title should change to “Why this lady in the video is impressively bad at existing”!

[@spartanrinzler2622]

I don't know who has been dunked on more at this point by @Real Science, the sunfish, or the panda... But the panda being related to such powerfull creatures such as bears, I think deserves it more. She did my boy sunfish wrong a lot, poor guy, I laughed so hard at that intro too tho 😂

[@WalterWhiteFootballSharing]

Creationists who think the world was created as is; are a true miracle. That this level of stupidity among families among so much information somehow didn't get weeded out millennia ago.

[@medinabello19]

Exactly. She should do a video about how stupid humans are.

[@esmeraldaweatherwaxe970]

it's a cult, abuse can be a way of life, look at the rural isolated corners where speaking in tongues is no reason to get medical help..

[@tonyp.bahama9368]

Short-sighted comment.

[@hugueskanda2785]

You as an évolutionniste explain to us the case of panda then

[@mikeoxlong3676]

Makes more sense then a randomly generating and self ordering universe.

[@JohnnyNakatomi]

Pandas know they are cute, thats enough for us and them ^___^

[@latexu95]

11:52 That's also the case with sloths, who are extremely slow in the trees and on the ground. But still their claws are strong enough to carry their weight in the canopy.🤔🦥

[@hugueskanda2785]

Some other animals who are suffering from amnesia forgetting their true identity. See falling down on the ground for millions of years is not a good thing

[@latexu95]

3:37 That was most likely because in such dense forests, it's much easier to find plant-based food than to hunt for meat (although tigers also live in same regions, and they're pure carnivores). And pandas are also too slow to catch any escaping prey. They can still sometimes scavenge carcasses left by tigers for extra nutrients.🤔🐯

[@Crimethoughtfull]

"It might seem they are too stupid to know they are supposed to die..." WOW, that's some hilarious shade! 🤣

[@YoungBlaze]

Don't forget they randomly learn Kung Fu at times.... But other than that very useless

[@rodrigoneves9166]

The Red Panda is the true and first Panda, this is the Giant Panda, or false Panda. "The giant panda was initially considered the "true" panda because of its prominence and size. However, the red panda was actually described and named scientifically before the giant panda, receiving the name panda in 1825. The term “panda” is derived from the Nepali word ponya, meaning bamboo or plant-eating animal." So the giant panda only is known by the name "Panda" due to its popularity, not by taxonomy. The true "Panda" is the red one.

[@conlon4332]

Do they eat bamboo?

[@rodrigoneves9166]

Yes, they do.

[@sapelesteve]

Fascinating video about the Panda! However, one glaring mistake is that Bears are not true hibernators. They undergo states of torpor during the winter months. The very best hibernators on the planet are Bats! 👍👍🦇🦇

[@brandoncomer6492]

They've been around for 3 Million years, which is probably 2.5 million longer than homo sapiens will make it.

[@sunrevolver]

In the past there's one insane Bear decided to go vegetarian and was exiled by the whole community.. So if anything Panda teaches us is that going vegan will make you cute but.... Well..

[@Benson_aka_devils_advocate_88]

This is an episode that deserves the "insane" moniker and yet you didn't use it in the title? For shame lol. These animals are insanely lucky to still be walking this Earth!!

[@-.-..._...-.-]

If we can genetically engineer corn we should do it to bamboo for them

[@alphatio]

If panda only exists in the US, the tone would be totally different. We would say "Why Pandas are so cute and chill".

[@taiwanstillisntacountry]

🐼🐼are cute, no matter where they live/comes from, even if they were from the USA.

[@theYogurtmaker]

Think about it, From the question you just asked, People would think "why did God create tuberculosis" He created everything according to his plan, not to humanity's plan.

[@vineyard3273]

Psalm 104:24-25 .How many are your works, LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time.

[@collin_mmarshall1655]

Human : Panda is bad at everything. Sloth : Phew!

[@Sydvicious_studios]

9:51 why are cats shown to be herbivores in that graph? I get if cats are able to process cyanide in low doses maybe, but they are obligate carnivores. Just sayin.

[@realscience]

They are not shown to be herbivores but rather its showing what levels of this enzyme carnivores have as comparison. It isn't much at all. And pandas only have a little more than a true carnivore

[@Sydvicious_studios]

@ ah ok, that makes sense. I got confused by the title at the top that said herbivore. Thank you for the clarification! 💕

[@AlexiRomanov-y3z]

They have the power to be a bear but instead decide not to????

[@owo4470]

Welcome to evolution.

[@savagesarethebest7251]

I am sure afraid that the same thing is happening with humans too, they are not Sapiens anymore

[@FNLNFNLN]

If I offered you the ability to spend all day lazing around and eating free food that grew everywhere around you , don't tell me you wouldn't be tempted.

[@xchi8040]

Do you see anything in a bamboo forest they can hunt on?

[@darkonyx6995]

Given the fact that they share the same continent with three other Bear species (Asiatic Black Bear, Sun Bear and Sloth Bear), other animals like Asian Elephants, Indian Rhinos, Tigers, Snow Leopards, Saltwater Crocodiles, Dholes, Leopards and, historically, Cheetahs, Lions, Paleoxodon and Gigantopithecus, it's no wonder that they decided to isolate themselves in a niche with next to no competition.

[@LuisSierra42]

I guess life ...uh, finds a way

[@latexu95]

4:49 And also, the organ called appendix helps herbivores to digest the cellulose in plants that they eat. With carnivores (and most omnivores) that organ has shriveled, as it wasn't needed anymore.🤔🌿

[@STEAMAIR1]

Jungle law: In the wild only the toughest survive . Panda : 😂😂😂😂