Pandas are large bears with black and white fur who live in south east Asia and eat bamboo. They don’t have a reputation as warmongers or celebrity chefs so what exactly is wrong with pandas?
I know the obvious answer here is “everything” but let’s try to break it down into manageable chunks please people. Jeez, get a grip.
Natural selection tends to promote adaptable species over specialised ones. If you are big, slow and stupid like a panda then you need to be able to eat anything to survive because there’s no way you can catch food. You can’t go wandering about looking for things to eat because some mean old hunter will be hanging your skin on his wall in no time if you can’t defend yourself or run away. What do pandas do? Sit about eating bamboo and getting wiped out.
Failing adaptability you should at least form a pack to protect the weakest members of the species and to benefit from the strength of numbers. However Giant Pandas are generally solitary. This works if you’re something cool like a tiger and can eat anything that gets in your way but if you’re a panda then it’s just silly.
Slow, stupid, overspecialised and antisocial. This could be forgiven if you had a high reproductive rate and could produce many offspring to bolster the numbers that fell to stupidity and hunting. Pandas though reject this idea and would rather die out. A female panda can produce 2 to 3 young in her lifetime if she can attract a male who isn’t as gay as a handbag full of rainbows. Something all male pandas seem to be.
Even the recent use of panda porn in captive breeding programs doesn’t seem to encourage male pandas to desire females. A male panda was quoted as saying “It’s demeaning to females and embarrassing to us.” With sexual intercourse lasting anywhere from thirty seconds to five whole minutes I’d be embarrassed too.
On the subject of embarrassment lets not forget how other bears feel about pandas. It has long been claimed that pandas aren’t even real bears but sadly this is untrue. I have often heard it said that the panda is related to the raccoon rather than the bear. In fact the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is related to the bear (family Ursidae) where the Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens) is not. I understand that this is a hotly debated topic in the field of taxonomy. Well, as hotly debated as these things get anyway. Proper bears feel a great shame at their ridiculous cousins though and continue to spread rumours that pandas aren’t bears.
On to that silly colouration that pandas insist on having. I mean: black and white stripes on your body. What were you thinking? But on your face? Your eyes look like someone has pissed in the snow.
That’s what’s wrong with pandas if anyone asks.
/
M said,
5 June 2007 at 1:08 pm
I like pandas…
M
hoverfrog said,
5 June 2007 at 1:09 pm
I like dodos but I still think that they needed to be extinct.
cha0tic said,
5 June 2007 at 1:42 pm
Do I dare click on the Panda Porn link? *shudder*
hoverfrog said,
5 June 2007 at 2:06 pm
Cha0tic, it’s pure filth.
Amy said,
5 June 2007 at 2:58 pm
You’re odd.Next you’ll be slating koala bears.Pfft
hoverfrog said,
5 June 2007 at 3:07 pm
Amy, stop tantalizing me with subtle hints that you’ve got your old blog back. It’s wrong and you know it, missy.
The word “koala” actually means “no drink” even though koalas do drink some water when thirsty. They get most of their moisture from leaves.
They aren’t bears at all. In fact, they aren’t even mammals but are marsupials. Clearly bear lovers have nothing to worry about in this little bundle of laziness. Even if they are a bit crap.
pandy said,
5 June 2007 at 3:11 pm
Hoy, Mr Frog, that’s just plain mean. Us Pandas don’t go around slating your slimy little green bodies and, ick, webbed toes now, do we..?
“Slow, stupid, overspecialised and antisocial” sounds like several people I know, actually.
And our colouring? What’s wrong with it? I never knew you were a panda-hater..
M said,
5 June 2007 at 3:19 pm
I’ve never seen a dodo so I don’t know if I like a dodo
That sounds like a poem.
I don’t know if I don’t like the dodo,
I’ve not seen one, how should I know?
I wouldn’t know where one to find
(weren’t they all wiped out by mankind)
but it was all way before my time
So liking a dodo, I don’t know, fine
Kind of like my bench sander
I do know I like the giant panda
M (there was a panda porn link? Glad I didn’t notice… I’m at work!)
Amy said,
5 June 2007 at 3:20 pm
Oh I am lazy and haven’t deleted the cookies in my pc at work so it still says that I am here though I am not.
Hmm I think you should work harder rather than spending time on wikipedia finding out random bear or marsupial facts.
And Pandy rocks so you shouldn’t slate Pandas. Pandy is tough and I daren’t boing her curly hair so a barrage of meanness on her race would not bode well.
hoverfrog said,
5 June 2007 at 3:27 pm
Panda-eyed I’ve always been a panda hater. I’ve just been covering up until I thought you weren’t looking. Now that you mention it I think I know plenty of humans who remind me of pandas.
Mas, poetry now. There’s a dodo at the the Natural History Museum I think. It’s stuffed but you can still see it and feel the scorn for yourself. Actually it may only be a model.
Amy, get a blog, you fruit loop. I can’t leave sarcastic comments without one…except maybe on facebook. You’re right though I should be working.
Amy said,
5 June 2007 at 3:35 pm
Nope that’s why I deleted all my blogs..just so you couldn’t leave sarcastic comments and that’s also why I rarely visit blogs so you can’t be sarcastic in your comments back to me. So there.
hoverfrog said,
5 June 2007 at 3:53 pm
Well nerr to you too!
yorksdevil said,
5 June 2007 at 3:53 pm
There are people who actually like pandas? Who knew?!
The problems with pandas « Intellectual Dropout 2 said,
5 June 2007 at 3:59 pm
[...] those of you who do not read Beaver & Steve, Mr Hoverfrog has written a handy post highlighting some of the main reasons to dislike pandas. Surprisingly, some people have lept to the [...]
sammy said,
5 June 2007 at 4:04 pm
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
that’s all quite true and by rights they shouldn’t be around and they should have changed and been all mottly to hide and been able to eat normal grass by now…
but they’re still dead cool
carsick said,
5 June 2007 at 7:04 pm
hoverfrog
I love pandas because they have their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks most of the time.
hoverfrog said,
5 June 2007 at 7:08 pm
YorksDevil, apparently. Although everyone knows that they are evil creatures.
Lovely Sammy, what kind of freakish mutant pandas have you been breeding?
Carsick, oh. Silly me.
jaime said,
5 June 2007 at 9:34 pm
plz tell me that you knew that a marsupial is a type of mammal. plz tell me that you aren’t honestly that stupid.
also i love pandas and most of what you said is complete bullshit, like right now the red panda is classified as a bear, and the tiger is also slow stupid and antisocial and it is highly specialized.
M said,
5 June 2007 at 10:33 pm
Stuffed dodo at the natural history museum? Over fed?
If there’s a natural history museum, is there an “un-natural history museum” as well?
I like Koala bears as well… but they’ve sharp and pointy claws
Mas
hoverfrog said,
6 June 2007 at 9:39 am
Jaime, yes I’m so stupid I can’t even recognise an evolutionery dead end when it waddles up to me on it’s black and white paws. Don’t diss the tiger, they bite.
Mas, aha the real reason dodos became extinct, too much cake.
hoverfrog said,
6 June 2007 at 11:07 am
Or is that dodii
M said,
6 June 2007 at 12:01 pm
no… that’s deadi
(not to be confused with mumi)
M
hoverfrog said,
6 June 2007 at 12:14 pm
*groan*
What’s in the box? « The Magnificent Frog said,
2 February 2008 at 10:09 pm
[...] species relies upon sexual desire for procreation. We wouldn’t want to go the way of the panda now would we? A dose of lust keeps a relationship healthy and allows us to overlook small [...]
Panda: Proof of evolution « The Magnificent Frog said,
28 April 2008 at 1:14 pm
[...] I mentioned almost a year ago in my post on What’s wrong with Pandas? the bear relative is an embarrassment. These tiny cocked failures in natural selection will soon [...]