Movements of rare all-white panda spotted in China
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With no spots on its body and unique red eyes, the wild giant panda was concluded to be an albino.
PHOTO: XINHUA
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CHENGDU - Infrared cameras have captured footage of the world’s only all-white panda approaching a mother panda and her cub in the Wolong National Nature Reserve in south-west China’s Sichuan province, the reserve management authorities said on Saturday.
In the video recorded at the end of February 2023, the all-white panda is seen walking towards the mother panda and the cub resting in a tree hollow and signalling to interact. However, the mother panda does not leave the hollow and keeps calm.
After the mother and the cub leave the hollow, the all-white panda comes back to the tree hollow and sniffs every place where the mother panda stayed.
“The cub in the footage is about one to two years old, and the all-white panda is nearly the size of an adult. At the end of February, wild pandas in Wolong have entered the oestrus season, during which the female pandas with cubs can be very aggressive when an adult panda approaches or invades,” said Mr Wei Rongping, a senior engineer at the China Conservation and Research Centre for Giant Pandas.
“This female panda was extremely ‘calm’ and did not conform to the general rule. One possibility is that the female panda is the mother of the all-white panda,” Mr Wei added.
There are 15 other video recordings of the overlapping trajectories of the three pandas in a short period, according to the reserve management authorities.
The distinctive creature burst into sight after infrared cameras captured its figure about 2,000m above sea level in the Wolong National Nature Reserve in April 2019.
With no spots on its body and unique red eyes, the wild giant panda was concluded to be an albino, hitherto the only one of its kind anywhere on earth.
CHINA DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
