Today is National Pandas Day. I've talked about red pandas a few months back, but today is less specific and more about pandas as a whole. There's two main species of pandas, but both have subspecies. For this article I'm going to focus on one of the subspecies of giant panda known as the Qinling panda.
Native to the Qinling Mountains in China, this rare bear is known for their being slightly smaller than giant Pandas and for the color of their fur, as Qinling pandas, while maintaining the dark and light marking pattern the species is known for, are brown instead of black and white. Little is known about this subspecies, and of what is available, little of that has been translated to English. Even reports of how they fare in captivity are elusive, as reports of the first Qinling panda and giant panda hybrids fared in captivity are contradictory. Regardless, I think we can all appreciate how cool it is that pandas have a rare second color pattern.