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Why do panda bears eat bamboo?

The panda bear is a carnivore but is well adapted to eat the bamboo which grows in its habitat. The panda has huge and powerful jaw muscles for crushing stems. It eats for 14 hours a day, processing half its own body weight in bamboo each day, but digests only a sixth of this. The panda can roll bamboo perfectly by gripping it with the equivalent of a human thumb. It knows the location of every bamboo grove in its neighbourhood.

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3 minutes