Because giant panda needs to eat large amounts of hard-stemmed vegetation (bamboo), it has three special talents: strong teeth, strong jaws, and enough muscle-power to use them.

Skull and Jaw

The skull of a giant panda

Its cheek teeth are huge, flattened to give a large working surface to process the food, and embedded in a massive jawbone. The masseter muscles that work the jaw are enormous, so large that the skull has a bony 'sagittal crest' running the length of the head to provide increased surface area for their attachment. Along with the development of a sagittal crest, the panda's skull has become wider and deeper, allowing more space for attachment of the chewing muscles, and at the same time giving the animal that rounded, funny teddy-bear face, so beloved by humans.

Teeth

The lower jaw of a giant panda

The giant panda's jaw is extremely heavy boned, much heavier than that of a bear, the carnivore which it is closely similar to, and carries teeth which show heavy modification for a herbivorous diet. The typical dental formula of the carnivore is I3/3 C1/1 P4/4 M3/4 (meaning that in each half of the upper and lower jaw there are three incisors, one canine, four premolars and three / four molar teeth.) The giant panda's dental formula is I3/3 C1/1 P4/4 M2/3 (although in some animals the first premolar may be absent), testifying to its membership of the carnivore club. Most carnivores have carnassial teeth, but giant panda, whose omnivorous diet is made up of at least 75% plant material, has lost its carnassial teeth. Moreover, both the premolars and the molar teeth of the giant panda have been strongly modified for crushing and grinding bamboo. The posterior premolars and molars are wide and flat, their surfaces heavily ridged and cusped; the giant panda's teeth appear more like those of cud-chewing species like cattle and goats than the carnivore from which they evolved.