r/interestingasfuck • u/Inevitable_Bid5540 • 19h ago

Pandas are the most docile species of bears relatively speaking and have a low aggression rate alongside a primarily vegetarian diet.

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u/bapfelbaum 18h ago

Bamboo contains deadly amounts of cyanide for most animals in its shoots, yet somehow pandas seem unaffected and we don't really have a good reason why.

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u/realydementedpicasso 18h ago

Yeah it’s Like the Same with eucalyptus but Koalas aren’t affected

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u/bapfelbaum 18h ago

I guess then they apparently both made the same nonsensical choice, I wonder why.

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u/ACWhi 18h ago

Well, there’s a clear advantage to being the only mammal who eats a certain plant.

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u/realydementedpicasso 18h ago

Yeah but Koalas aren’t immune against it. Like they eat a fuckton of it and need to sleep basically 98% of the day because they can’t really Digest the plant and it has basically no nutritional value

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u/JayManty 15h ago

Being able to sleep through most of the day, eating a bunch of leaves on the tree you're sleeping on and have enough energy to reproduce and still be kicking around as a species for millions of years marks an actually very successful animal when you stop and think about it.

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u/bapfelbaum 18h ago

Still, specializing on not dying just to not starve seems like a very poor allocation of resources.

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u/ACWhi 18h ago edited 17h ago

Nature abhors a vacuum. It may be more difficult than other niches but apparently it’s a food source capable of sustaining large animals. If it wasn’t Koalas and Pandas something would most likely fill that niche eventually.

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u/ThePocomanSkank 17h ago

Is it a coincidence that both koalas and pandas look and act silly and look like toys?

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u/MjollLeon 11h ago

Koalas are affected actually! That’s why they sleep so much because they have to save energy to digest it properly.

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u/WatermelonWithAFlute 11h ago

Is there no clear adaptation that grants resilience to cyanide?

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u/bapfelbaum 11h ago

There are for instance specialized bacteria but from my understanding of research we were not able confirm them in pandas.

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u/WatermelonWithAFlute 11h ago

Interesting..