And those black ears that you might think are adorable are meant to help the panda communicate "ferocity" to predators. Dark eye patches aren't meant to resist glare, as the experts thought, but instead probably help the panda recognize friends and ward off competitors.
Piebald patches evolved as a sort of compromise since the bamboo eaters are active year-round, per Science. Lead author Tim Caro says in a statement that the panda's unique coloring posed "a long-standing problem in biology that has been difficult to tackle because virtually no other mammal has this appearance." The "breakthrough" came, he explains, when researchers treated "each part of the body as an independent area." The panda question wasn't Caro's first bicolor-related puzzle.
He once donned a zebra costume as part of a quest to figure out why the animals have stripes, per UC Davis. The answer? To stop pesky horseflies from biting them.
/Fox News/
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