Paw Prints

Padding through the bamboo

How many toes does a Panda have?

Panda on it's back

Lazy Munching

This topic was suggested by NED.

From Wikipedia:

The giant panda’s paw has a “thumb” and five fingers; the “thumb” is actually a modified sesamoid bone, which helps the giant panda to hold bamboo while eating.[21] Stephen Jay Gould discusses this feature in his book of essays on evolution and biology, The Panda’s Thumb.

Interesting. Cats seem to have a similar “digit” structure from what I can tell, and the chinese for panda, ?? (xiĆ³ng m?o), means “bear cat”. The book has duly been added to my Kindle Wishlist :)

So to answer NED’s question, Pandas don’t have any toes in a sense, but I guess they have 10 fingers, 10 toes and 4 thumbs :)

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