Natural Selection
As the years have gone by, the giant panda has evolved and changed dramatically. These changes were caused by environmental changes, lack of food, and the need to survive. Natural selection is when organisms better adapt to their environment, and they tend to survive and produce more offspring’s that can survive in that same environment. Giant pandas have developed four major adaptations they include eating bamboo, developing strong jaw muscles, large molars to eat the bamboo and strong legs. All of these adaptations did not occur over night they took time to develop. The reason pandas started eating bamboo was because global warming was increasing, causing the bodies of water to become really hot so the fish died off because they were not accustomed to these conditions. The panda’s main source of food was fish, but since the fish were dying off so were that pandas, this meant that they had to find another source of food. Soon enough pandas began to eat bamboo, because there were not many other plants available that provided as much nutrients as the bamboo did. The picture on the left shows you how this adaptation helped the survival of future pandas. This adaptation leads to the development of strong jaw muscles which was a very important adaptation to the panda’s survival. Pandas need the strong jaws because the bamboo was a very durable and flexible plant that was difficult to eat. As a result, pandas have also developed an enlarged cranial cavity that can house the strong jaw muscles necessary to chew through bamboo. Along with this adaptation of the strong jaw muscle pandas also needed proper teeth to be able to eat the bamboo. They developed smoother and larger molars because this way it was easier for them to eat the bamboo. As a survival skill to get away from predators pandas had to learn how to climb trees. Since pandas were constantly being chased by their predators they had to practically run up the trees. As the years went by pandas developed stronger legs so that it could carry their weight up the trees.