Go home baby pandas / you are drunk
October 11, 2017 10:29 PM   Subscribe

In 2003, scientists from Zoo Atlanta, Chengdu, and the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding published a study that described trends in the behavior of giant panda cubs. Among other findings, this study confirmed that falling was a normal and expected part of the play of the giant panda cubs being reared by their mother. [...] In celebration of our giant panda cubs second birthday on October 13, we at the Toronto Zoo wanted to show you just how promising the development of Canada’s first giant panda cubs has been over the last 24 months. It’s a bunch of baby pandas falling on their little baby panda baby butts! [SLYT]
posted by Room 641-A (33 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'v recently been on a Björk bender, Hyperballad specifically, and this just turned everything upside/buttside up/down!
posted by mephisjo at 10:41 PM on October 11, 2017


Wow I needed that.
posted by soakimbo at 10:58 PM on October 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


Panda butts drive me nutts.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:01 PM on October 11, 2017 [5 favorites]


As a friend described it, the greatest threat to pandas is pandas
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:04 PM on October 11, 2017 [15 favorites]


Roly-poly little floofballs. I want to smish them.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 11:30 PM on October 11, 2017 [4 favorites]


Only pandas who have first acquired mastery over gravity can eventually achieve the Foot Finisher.
posted by flabdablet at 11:32 PM on October 11, 2017


"Fall Compilation" -- heh.
posted by Clave at 11:35 PM on October 11, 2017


i have spent more time at wolong than any non-panda researcher should have and i can definitively state that pandababies spend the vast majority of their non-napping time engaged in competitive falling down

they are extremely foolish creatures and i want 1000
posted by poffin boffin at 11:55 PM on October 11, 2017 [29 favorites]


"Service! Service!"
posted by BinaryApe at 12:08 AM on October 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


They look like all their bones have been replaced by FLOOF! Such floofy pandas!
posted by bookmammal at 1:17 AM on October 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


Pandas are idiots. Adorable idiots, but idiots nonetheless.
posted by jontyjago at 2:06 AM on October 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


I find this more distressing than cute :/
posted by sexyrobot at 2:54 AM on October 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


Pandas spend all their time eating, pooping (because they have a hard time digesting their food), sleeping (they have a hard time extracting energy from low-energy bamboo fodder, so they have to conserve it) and falling down. They're meant to be endangered.
posted by elgilito at 3:09 AM on October 12, 2017 [5 favorites]


I find this more distressing than cute :/

Don’t worry sexyrobot! From the post:
In 2003, scientists from Zoo Atlanta, Chengdu, and the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding published a study that described trends in the behavior of giant panda cubs. Among other findings, this study confirmed that falling was a normal and expected part of the play of the giant panda cubs being reared by their mother.
posted by Room 641-A at 4:06 AM on October 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


Such graceful, elegant creatures!

They are so floppy! I liked when they were rolling down the bamboo incline.
posted by darksong at 6:52 AM on October 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


i can definitively state that pandababies spend the vast majority of their non-napping time engaged in competitive falling down

But what about all the time they spend gleefully sabotaging any attempts to clean their space?
posted by Kat Allison at 7:02 AM on October 12, 2017 [13 favorites]


Pandas must have very resilient coccyges.

Yes, I had to look up the plural of coccyx. And yes, that is it. Coccyxes is acceptable in some dictionaries.
posted by sutt at 7:03 AM on October 12, 2017 [8 favorites]


If only there was a way to get them into protective baskets....
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:11 AM on October 12, 2017


I don't know about this. I think it needs more falls. :)
posted by martin q blank at 7:37 AM on October 12, 2017


From an evolutionary perspective, I don’t understand why they would be so maladapted to gravity. Clearly we need to send panda cubs into space to observe what happens in zero-G.

For science.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:03 AM on October 12, 2017 [13 favorites]


I kept expecting Bugs Bunny to pop up with an electric razor.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:12 AM on October 12, 2017


From an evolutionary perspective, I don’t understand why they would be so maladapted to gravity.

Apparently baby pandas don't have bones.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:58 AM on October 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


Those play structures are obviously unsafe.
Where's the CHFS/FSCAA when you need them?
posted by MtDewd at 11:10 AM on October 12, 2017


The panda baby trotting along at 0:51!!!
posted by ellieBOA at 11:20 AM on October 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


Last night, before this was posted, the words "panda butt" lodged firmly into my brain. I was a bit out of it because of a respiratory infection. This morning, I woke up angry, with my even stores depleted.

I just want to thank you for getting my message from last night and replenishing my evens. Panda butts!
posted by Ruki at 1:10 PM on October 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


Pandas are the guinea fowl of the mammal world.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:42 PM on October 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


Bah ha ha! Its like half way through each fall they just give up and go with it. They're like the jello of the baby animal world.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 3:27 PM on October 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


Actually many of their falls are of the gentle variety.
posted by notreally at 3:33 PM on October 12, 2017


Too clingy for me. If I want that action, I’ll get a toddler.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:58 PM on October 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


From an evolutionary perspective, I don’t understand why they would be so maladapted to gravity. Clearly we need to send panda cubs into space to observe what happens in zero-G.

Ling Ling could feel the fog lifting.

For a few moments, they were confused, but their brain was adapted to make split-second decisions and infer "truth" from the barest evidence, as befits a space-faring race, and Ling Ling was soon marveling at the primitive technology on display in the ship they were strapped into. Definitely the product of a species which was only a few generations from mindlessly wandering their environment.

Speculating on what such a species' society must be like gave them something to do until...ah, there it was!

(About five minutes after launch, the poison of gravity had lifted enough that the beacon, left by the pandas before the ill-fated exploration mission, found Ling Ling's consciousness and was beaming to them, via what could be called a "biological wireless receiver"--though that is inaccurate in every way a short phrase can be--the current status of the exploration fleet, the number of fellow pandas on the rather grim terrestrial world below, and other information needed to get their mission back on track.)

Ling Ling was aghast. They were now 100,000 orbits of this world behind schedule, and they were determined to make that time up as best they could.

Sending for the command craft to rendezvous with the primitive orbiting cage they were temporarily trapped within, Ling Ling was thankful it was within a day's travel, currently parked within the Oort cloud. They also decided that expediency was more important than grace, and ordered the "elevator" to be retrieved by the six ships holding it in place at sixth planet's pole. It would cause some significant damage to the planet below when deployed, but it looked like the dominant species was doing that anyway, this would bring the "no return" horizon up a few decades. Resetting a planet's evolutionary progress was ultimately good for it, in any case.

With that done, Ling Ling made a note for researchers, once individuals were available to fill their ranks, to investigate why the third gender failed to assert itself in a heavy gravity field like the one on the planet below. That missing gender really slowed the reproduction rate.

But for now, their work was done, and there was nothing to do but wait.
posted by maxwelton at 7:30 PM on October 12, 2017 [8 favorites]


I follow the media channel iPanda on Facebook, Youtube and bilibili (a Chinese video site where it goes by the name Pandapia). Can never get enough of these roly-polys.

There's actually an ongoing joke in the video programs they create that the pandas are an alien race, and their greatest enemies are - trees! Which is why the pandas frequently spy on (read:climb) and destroy (read:chomp) trees.
posted by Alnedra at 8:38 PM on October 12, 2017


everybody like the baby panada
posted by stone111000 at 8:57 PM on October 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


OMG, the music was perfectly matched with the video. Perfectly!
posted by bendy at 12:29 AM on October 13, 2017 [1 favorite]


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