Visual Signals

Although the giant panda is solitary, it is not antisocial. No solitary species is. Exchanging information is as important as it is in social species, to integrate the members of a population and to space them out. All animals require reliable news bulletins on who is doing what and where. Because pandas seldom meet, close-contact visual signals are not the norm and are not very well developed, but they are important when face to face confrontations occur.

Most visual options are ruled out for the giant panda. For example, the contrast between the black ears and the white crown is obvious and might, at first sight, be expected to play a part in visual communication, but the lack of ear movement, whatever the emotion of the animal, makes this a non-starter. The black nose and lips are prominent, but the panda's face, with its short muzzle, is incapable of much expression. The eye patches act like eye shadow and mascara and make the panda's eyes look huge but the eyes themselves also lack expression. The short tail can hardly qualify as a display organ and the fur is short without a size-enhancing erectile crest. All in all, not a very useful set of visual hardware. What face to face visual communication there is is done through body postures with the help of the panda's striking markings.

The first of these is the threat posture. A giant panda faces its opponent and stares at it with lowered head so that the ears stand out against the white fur of the shoulders and duplicate the eye patches. The animal may then bob its head up and down for good measure. If emotions escalate, pandas will swat each other with their forepaws and lunge at or grapple with each other with paws and muzzle. They may do this while squatting, standing or leaning into each other on their hind legs. It is observed that: if one turns away, the other may bite nape or shoulder and shake its head while doing so. The attacked animal may be pushed or roll onto its side or back, all four legs flailing, while the other straddles or drapes itself over the fallen opponent, mouthing and pawing, and sometimes biting with or without a head shake.

To convey a non-combative stance, the animal plays down the four-spot effect of the eyes and ears by averting its head or, in an even more submissive stance, will drop its head between its shoulders and cover its eye patches and muzzle with its forepaws. During mating, a female will go further in submission and rest the top of her head on the ground so that there is not a hint of confrontation. A non-aggressive panda may also imitate its actions in infancy and roll on its back as if in invitation to play.