大熊貓竟是食肉動物！

For most of us, the jump from meat-eater to vegetarian is a big one. For the giant panda, the switch was all too easy. Despite a long family history of meat-heavy meals, this large bear now feeds almost exclusively on tough bamboo – a change its ancestors made more than 2 million years ago.

對于大多數(shù)人來說，從雜食到純素飲食，需要艱難的習(xí)慣過程。但是大熊貓不一樣，它們可以自由地轉(zhuǎn)換飲食習(xí)慣。盡管歷史上，大熊貓曾長時間以肉類為主食，但現(xiàn)在卻幾乎只吃堅硬的竹子——它們200多萬年前的祖先走上的那條進(jìn)化支線。

For that reason, by all appearances, the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is a herbivore. But escaping your roots has never been easy, and from one dietary perspective this black-and-white bear remains just as much a carnivore as many of its relatives.

因此，從各方面來看，大熊貓(Ailuropoda melanoleuca)是草食動物。但江山易改本性難移，這只黑白相間的熊和它的許多親戚一樣，仍然保留了食肉動物本性。

Even though the giant panda has long-eschewed all meat, new research suggests that it continues to eat like a wolf (quite literally).

盡管大熊貓長期以來都不吃肉，但新研究表明，它吃起東西來像狼一樣(字面意思)。

After years of tracking the animal's eating habits, scientists have now revealed that its favourite bamboo shoots are basically a kind of faux meat, given they're absolutely brimming with protein.

經(jīng)過多年來對這種動物的飲食習(xí)慣的跟蹤，科學(xué)家們發(fā)現(xiàn)，它最喜歡的竹筍基本上是一種人造肉，因為它們含有極為豐富的蛋白質(zhì)。

And pandas know it. Over the years, the researchers watched as these creatures climbed to ever greater heights, following the young shoots with low fibre content and high protein.

熊貓也知道這一點(diǎn)。多年來，研究人員觀察到，這些生物會爬得更高去獲取纖維素更少，蛋白質(zhì)含量更高的筍。

With half the panda's energy coming from protein alone, the researchers conclude that the bear's diet is less like a herbivore and more like a hyper-carnivore, similar to a feral cat or wolf. In fact, it's left the team wondering if the term 'herbivore' can even fully capture the true quirkiness of this giant mammal's diet.

由于大熊貓一半的能量僅來自蛋白質(zhì)，研究人員得出結(jié)論：熊貓的飲食不像是食草動物，更像是食肉動物，類似于野貓或狼。事實上，這讓研究小組懷疑“食草動物”這個詞是否能完全概括這種巨型哺乳動物飲食的真正特性。

Based on what they eat, they absolutely belong to the herbivores, but considering the macronutrient composition of the ingested and absorbed diets, they belong to the carnivores, says researcher Fuwen Wei from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

北京中國科學(xué)院的研究員魏福文說：“基于食物類型，它們絕對屬于食草動物，但考慮到常規(guī)攝入和消化的營養(yǎng)成分，它們屬于食肉動物。”

Perhaps the giant panda is doomed to forever sit on this categorical fence. Over millions of years of evolution, the bear developed jaws, teeth and thumbs ideal for handling bamboo, but deep inside it holds a bloodthirsty secret that has largely gone unnoticed.

或許熊貓就是兩者的分界線。經(jīng)過數(shù)百萬年的演化，熊貓發(fā)展出非常適合處理竹子的下顎、牙齒和拇指，但在身體內(nèi)部深處卻暗藏了一個嗜血的秘密——在很大程度上被人類忽視了。

Unlike a herbivore, its digestive tract is short and unsuited to fibre digestion, while the enzymes and microbes in its gut speak volumes of its Carnivora clade. Both the panda's milk and poo were also found to contain high levels of protein, with the milk especially reminiscent of what carnivores suckle, in terms of its macronutrient makeup.

與草食動物不同，它的消化道很短，不適合纖維消化，而腸道中的酶和微生物類型則屬于的食肉動物一支。大熊貓的牛奶和糞便中都含有高水平的蛋白質(zhì)，從宏觀營養(yǎng)成分來看，熊貓奶特別像是雌性食肉動物的哺乳期分泌的液體。

In giant pandas, a short, carnivorous gut facilitates rapid throughput, and the high abundance and easy accessibility of bamboo enable large amounts to be eaten, compensating for low digestive efficiency, the authors explain.

作者解釋說：“在大熊貓體內(nèi)，一條短而食肉的腸道有助于快速吞食，竹子數(shù)量豐富，易于獲取，可以大量食用，從而補(bǔ)償了低消化效率。”

In short, the findings suggest that giant pandas had to undergo few evolutionary adaptations to make the switch from meat to bamboo. There, sitting in front of them, was a seemingly endless source of protein-rich food that had everything they needed. All they had to do was eat a lot of it.

簡而言之，研究結(jié)果表明，大熊貓不得不進(jìn)行微調(diào)進(jìn)化，以便從肉食轉(zhuǎn)向竹子。畢竟，那是看似無窮無盡的富含蛋白質(zhì)的食物來源，它們所要做的只是使勁多吃。

If you're going to switch to a specific plant, bamboo isn't too bad, as it does have respectable plant protein levels, as well as a swathe of different vitamins, bacteriologist Garret Suen from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who wasn't involved with the study, told The Atlantic.

威斯康星大學(xué)麥迪遜分校的細(xì)菌學(xué)家Garret Suen說：“如果你改吃特定的植物，竹子也不算太糟糕，因為它的植物蛋白質(zhì)含量可觀，而且含有大量不同的維生素。”