MeaninglessMoniker: I think Colbert should exempt pandas from the threat index. After all they are vegetarians.

That just proves that they're liberal merciless assassins.

The article seems to say that four, not eight, baby pandas were born last week, not this week. Not trying to be a smart ass; just supporting RTFA. Although so many pandas have been born in captivity over there of late that I'm starting to wonder if the PRC government is making some of it up. They did have a picture of like 16 baby pandas that they released to the press, though, and I never heard 'shenanigans'.

Giant pandas are not vegetarians . . . depending on your definition. Like a great many 'vegetarian' mammals, they don't regularly make it part of their diet but they'll eat meat when they get the chance.

In fact, the easiest way to catch a giant panda is to make a cage trap (like a giant version of a common-in-North-America squirrel trap) and bait it with a piece of still-sizzling cooked meat. Pandas will smell the meat from miles away and come walk straight into the cage.

You can put away the myth of pandas only being able to digest bamboo, too. They're very adapted to eating it in the wild, but they'll happily eat Quaker oatmeal if that's what you give them. Koalas are fussier.

Giant pandas aren't terribly aggressive, in case you were wondering, but they have serious teeth and consequential claws, and they're bigger and stronger than people tend to think. Should you ever get the chance to piss off an adult, don't.

Never mind about that panda count. I deciphered and recalculated, and it does say eight pandas last week and into this week. As usual, the FA in that RTFA was written and edited by FAs.

Crazy_Horse_Invincible: Pandas aren't bears at all. They are giant raccoons.

Red pandas are related to racoons, giant pandas are bears. Red pandas and giant pandas aren't closely related but share many physiological traits due to convergent evolution.