Pandas are cute.
Pandas are also endangered. We all know that, don't we?
And we all know why too; the normal reasons...habitat lost and low birthrate.
Another thing we all know is that pandas eat shoots and leaves.
What kind of shoots and leaves?
Well, bamboo shoots and leaves of course!
One thing not many of us know that one of the reasons why the panda is endangered is because of the life-cycle of it's staple food: the forementioned bamboo.
Although the bamboo trees we see around don't have flowers, bamboo trees do flower. It's just that they flower on the average every 28 years.
The catch here is that bamboo is monocarpic. This means that after they have finished flowering, the plant will die. According to Wikipedia, the plant being monocarpic is thought to have evolved because it reduces the effect of predators of the seed, who would be unable to depend on a predictable food supply.
To add to that, bamboo trees flower together, at the same time.
So every 28 years or so, the entire bamboo forest dies, leaving the pandas with no food. And if they're not successful in finding another bamboo forests, poof, off they disappear (to heaven I meant...or wherever animals go when they kaput. The sheol maybe. Heh) .
A Bamboo Flower
