These small, orange, fluffy mammals were first discovered just two hundred years ago. The Ailurus fulgens are now an endangered species and threats against their survival continue to grow.  There are less than 10,000 individuals remaining as the poor creatures struggles to thrive. The Ailurus fulgens are also know as red pandas or lesser pandas. The name, Ailurus fulgens, is the scientific name for these species. These small little creatures are Herbivorous and have a mass between 3-6 kg. Their average life span is eight years and and they can grow up to twenty six inches long.

Like giant pandas, red pandas live in a rainy, high altitude forest habitat, but they have a wider range. Red pandas live in the mountains of Nepal and northern Myanmar (Burma), as well as in central China. These pandas usually spend their time in trees and sleep aloft. They are also active at night while also venturing out at dusk and dawn. Red pandas have a taste for bamboo but, unlike their larger relatives, they eat many other foods as well—fruit, acorns, roots, and eggs. They are shy and solitary except when mating. Females give birth in the spring and summer, typically to one to four young.

Yet these pandas’ population is decreasing little by little to the point that it’s endangered. Almost 50 percent of the red panda’s habitat is in the Eastern Himalayas. The loss of nesting trees and bamboo is deteriorating its natural habitat and environment. These pandas aren’t usually hunted but they wind up in other traps, such as deer traps. But the WWF is protecting the Red Pandas and are always looking for new ways to save them.

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