Eats shoots and flees: Pandas abandon their bamboo leaves and scramble up a tree as earthquake hits China
- Pandas Zhen Xi and Jing Liang ran to safety in no time when they felt the tremble
- The bears were enjoying a hearty meal of bamboo leaves when the quake struck
- Footage of their swift action was widely shared after being captured by a tourist
- Neither of the animals was hurt and they are eating and playing as usual today
Pandas are known for their slow motion and chilling attitude, but they may surprise you with their swift reaction in the face of danger.
Two of those black-and-white bears in China have been caught on camera running to safety like a bolt of lightning when a 4.6-magnitude earthquake hit their hometown.
Male pandas Zhen Xi and Jing Liang, both two years old, quickly abandoned their food and fled up a tree as soon as they felt the ground shaking in south-western China’s Sichuan Province.
Zhen Xi and Jing Liang throw aside their favourite food and start to run towards a tree after feeling the ground trembling at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in China
The two pandas compete to climb up the same tree in the face of danger inside their enclosure
The two animals were lying on the ground enjoying a hearty meal of bamboo leaves at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in Chengdu when the earthquake struck the nearby city of Mianyang yesterday afternoon.
Their impressive response was filmed by a tourist who was visiting the base.
The tourist, who calls himself by his online moniker ‘Er Ge Di Yi Xian Chang’, told MailOnline that he was visiting the base with his friends at the time.
‘Because the pandas were lying on the ground, they were more sensitive to any movements. We saw them getting up and running, but we didn’t know why,’ the man said.
‘We only realised moments later that there was an earthquake,’ he added.
The earthquake struck Mianyang’s Anzhou district at 3:20pm yesterday at a depth of 10 kilometres (6.2 miles), according to China Earthquake Networks Center.
No casualties have been reported.
The tourist who filmed the amusing scene said he only realised there was an earthquake later
Zhen Xi and Jing Liang were not hurt in the event, according to the breeding base in Chengdu
Zhen Xi and Jing Liang were not hurt in the event. They are eating and playing as usual today, according to the breeding centre.
Despite the pair’s swift actions, pandas are notoriously slow animals.
The average moving speed of a wild panda is 26.9 metres or 88.3 feet per hour, according to a 2015 study conducted by Chinese and British scientists.
Zoo pandas move even more slowly.
Experts say that pandas’ lazy daily routine helps them save energy and survive on the poor diet of bamboo.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT GIANT PANDAS?
While its numbers are slowly increasing, the giant panda remains one of the rarest and most endangered bears in the world.
There are an estimated 1,864 giant pandas living in the wild and 548 in zoos and breeding centres around the world.
Experts are unclear what age giant pandas can reach in the wild, but the oldest panda reared in captivity so far was 38 years old.
A wild panda’s diet is 99 per cent bamboo, with the remaining one per cent made up of small rodents.
Four-month-old baby giant panda Xiang Xiang is pictured getting a physical examination at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo on October 10, 2017
Giant Pandas need to consume around 20 to 40 pounds (10 to 20 kilograms) of bamboo each day to get the nutrients they need.
They are around three to four feet tall when standing on all four legs.
Cubs do not open their eyes until they are six to eight weeks of age and are not able to move independently until three months old.
A newborn panda is about the size of a stick of butter, or about 1/900th the size of its mother.