Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
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Quick answers
Why is ecological role scored low?
Pandas are bamboo specialists in a small mountain belt. They do not engineer continents like elephants or move ocean nutrients like whales. The score is relative, not an insult.
Did the 2016 downlist mean the crisis ended?
VU is better than EN. Fragmented habitat, bamboo die-off cycles and a still-small wild number keep the species in a watch band, not a recovered one like koi or many owls.
Why does WWF use a panda?
The 1961 logo drew on Chi-Chi at London Zoo -- a high-contrast animal that printed well. The brand and the wild census later had to share one face.
What did Nixon 1972 change?
Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing at the National Zoo made panda diplomacy a Cold War soft-power tool that China still uses as loans, not gifts.
What happened at Wolong in 2008?
The Sichuan earthquake killed staff and animals and wrecked the breeding centre. Rebuilding became a national reconstruction exhibit.
Who was Ruth Harkness?
An American who took Su Lin out of China in 1936 -- a living-export story that predates modern loan contracts.
IUCN: VU (2016 downlist)
Every giant panda is a stack of tissues that must agree under season, prey and human pressure.
Meters below repeat the six atlas scores as gauges; they are relative marks, not laboratory certificates.
Systems
Support and integument
A bear with a false thumb (radial sesamoid) for bamboo, a massive skull for grinding, and a carnivore gut on a herbivore diet -- an expensive compromise.
Feeding apparatus
Hours of bamboo to extract little protein. Low activity is a budget, not laziness. Meat is rare, not a secret second life. The feeding kit sets the ecological-role score relative to the other 23 types.
Respiration and circulation
Gas exchange and blood flow are tuned to the giant panda energy budget -- dive, hover, sprint or bulk browse -- not to a generic vertebrate template.
Senses and neural control
Smell and a session of sit-and-grind. The false thumb is the famous morphological sense of touch on culms.
Reproduction and ontogeny
Replacement rate is the hidden resilience number. A narrow diet and a narrow map. High culture, mid resilience -- the WWF face is not a recovered generalist.
Thermoregulation and salt/water
Climate and osmoregulation bound where a giant panda can close its daily budget. Field sites in the English-speaking world still measure that envelope first.
Relative meters
Hotspots
Primary weapon or tool
The bill, teeth, trunk, pouch or talon that field guides name first -- and that trade or conflict usually targets.
Energy store
Fat, cache, crop or bamboo hours that decide whether a season closes.
Natal or breeding site
A redd, eyrie, den, anemone or ice lair -- often a single-point risk (Izumi, Natron, Gir).
Sensory organ
Smell and a session of sit-and-grind. The false thumb is the famous morphological sense of touch on culms.
Human interface
Hunt, tourism, film or quota -- the surface where giant panda biology meets English-language law.
Tissues & materials
Keratin and integument
Feathers, fur, baleen or skin plates -- tissues, not metals. Moult and wear are the maintenance cycle.
Bone and cartilage
Load paths for stoop, lunge, knuckle-walk or hover. Marrow and pneumatic bone differ by family.
Muscle and tendon
The expensive tissue that speed and intelligence scores only hint at.
Fat, oil and glycogen
Stores that migration, fast and lactation spend. A market for those stores (oil, ivory, fin) is a historical threat.
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