The chemical motive for giant pandas’ smelly winter habits

Two compounds in horse manure appear to protect giant pandas from feeling the cold. The findings offer a chemical explanation for unusual behaviour witnessed in populations of wild pandas in China’s Qinling mountains.

In a year-long study, a team led by Fuwen Wei and Ren Lai from the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) filmed dozens of Qinling pandas rolling around in piles of horse manure and smearing it all over themselves. The unusual scenes only occurred during colder months, almost always when temperatures had dropped below 15°C. And the pandas seemed to seek out only the freshest dung.