Extremely rare creature caught on camera in China park for first time in years. See it
In the mountainous terrain of central China, a layer of snow dusts the short grass and fallen branches.
The bright white layer of snow shines against a nearly pitch black sky.
From the darkness, a Chinese icon lumbers into view.
It’s a giant panda — but something is different.
Instead of the classic black and white blocked coloring, the bear is a mix between tan and brown, according to a video shared by the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism on May 13 on social media platform Weibo.
Reserve staff were going through trail camera footage from inside the park and sorting through the data when they noticed the brown panda, wildlife officials said.
The video, originally taken on Jan. 17, is the first time a brown panda has been spotted in the park since March 2018, officials said.
It’s also only the 11th time a panda of this kind has ever been seen in the Qinling area, according to the post.
“Zoologists link the brown coloring to a Bace2 gene mutation,” CGTN Global Watch, a state-owned media outlet in China, reported in a May 13 Facebook post.
Giant pandas are among the rarest members of the bear family in the world and live exclusively in the mountain forests of China, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Changqing National Nature Reserve is in the Shaanxi province in the center of the country.
Google Translate was used to translate the Weibo post from the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism.
