Red Pandas are Dangerously Cute

I tried to write an intro to this video, but I just got caught looking at all the insane cuteness that is red pandas. Here's one standing up. Here's one climbing around. Here's one doing red panda things. Hi, I'm Danielle Dufault, and you're watching Animalogic. Red pandas are a mystery to me. They're objectively the cutest mammals ever. Seriously, hold them up against anything, even baby things. Kitten? Nope. Puppy? Nope. Otter? Nuh-uh. Fennec fox? Get out of here. But despite this, they are endangered. The animal with which they share a name, the giant panda, is having similar problems. But since their adoption as the poster bear for almost every conservation effort ever, and the cuteness factor, their population in the wild has increased nearly 17% since 2003, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's way better than the estimated 50% decrease in red panda populations since 2001. That being said, the red panda is a very solitary animal that spends most of its life in the trees of Nepal and India, near the Himalayas, and it is very difficult to accurately track their population. Speaking of the giant panda, the red panda, or Ilerus fulgens, meaning fire cat in Latin, was first described in 1825, 48 years before the giant panda was catalogued. Another name they go by is Firefox, which is where Firefox got its name, despite the fact that their logo is an actual fox on fire. Doesn't make sense. Their taxonomy classification has been controversial since their discovery, and they've been placed in the Procyonidae family with raccoons, the Ursidae family with bears, in the Ileropoda family with the giant panda, and now they've been placed in their own family, Ileridae. While they're only found in the wild in parts of Nepal and India, fossil records have found a different species of red panda near Tennessee. The fossils date between 4 and 7 million years ago, and reveals a giant red panda the size of a mountain lion. Red pandas' head and body measure around 60 centimeters long, and their tails are another 60 centimeters. Since they spend so much time in trees, they need those big tails for balance. They will also wrap the tails around themselves for warmth, which is just the cutest! Males are slightly heavier, weighing between 4 and 6 kilos, compared to 3 and 6 kilos for females. They have long, soft, adorable auburn fur on their upper body, and darker brown fur on their underbody. They have distinct white markings on their face that are almost luminescent, and helpful for the cubs to find their mothers in the dark. Their tail is ringed in auburn and beige, which helps them camouflage against the reddish-brown, moss-covered fir trees in which they live. They have hair on the soles of their feet, which keeps their tootsies warm on the cold winter snow, as well as providing some extra grip when climbing slick branches. Weirdly enough, they even have a link to lizards and snakes, and they use their tongues to taste the air. On the underside of their tongue, they have enlarged papillae, which allows them to analyze vapors to detect scents of predators and prey. Which is probably why there are so many adorable pictures of red pandas sticking their tongue out. Unfortunately, they're not that sassy. Red pandas, like their in-name-only brethren, survive mostly on bamboo and small insects. They generally eat around 200,000 leaves of bamboo a day, spending around 10-14 hours of the day eating, and the rest of the day is spent sleeping. Like giant pandas, the red panda has a wrist bone that acts as a false thumb, which allows them to easily grab bamboo shoots. Their main predator is the clouded leopard, which are insanely good at climbing the trees in which red pandas live. But it's like the cutest predator for the cutest prey! I know many of you have asked for an episode on clouded leopards, so I'm going to save the details for later. Their other big threat, and a major contributor to their endangerment, are of course poachers. Red panda tails are highly prized, and used in some parts of China as good luck charms at weddings. Dating back as far as the 1800s, red pandas were a must-have accessory in the Victorian era. And many were panda-napped and taken as pets by Victorians. This is known as the red panda curse. Their population has been gutted by people stealing them and taking them out of their natural habitats. The scary thing is, while elephant tusks fetch a lot of money on the black market, in the prime red panda poaching time, so the 1970s, poachers were only paid the equivalent of one US dollar per red panda. Which is a crazy low amount of money to have to kill the cutest creature on the face of the earth! On to lighter things. If you heard a red panda, you might not know it. They're normally very quiet, but when they do make noise, they tweet! Like birds! What animal should I check out next? Please let me know in the comments, and be sure to subscribe for new episodes of Animalogic every week. Thanks for watching!