What mammal has black and white fur and is native to China?

The mammal with black-and-white fur that is native to China is the giant panda. Its scientific name is Ailuropoda melanoleuca, a name meaning roughly “black-and-white cat-foot.” The species is a bear, despite its rounded body, distinctive facial markings, and historical confusion with the unrelated red panda.

Giant pandas are endemic to China, meaning they occur naturally nowhere else. Wild populations survive in fragmented mountain forests, especially in Sichuan, with smaller populations in Shaanxi and Gansu. Their famous coloring includes black ears, eye patches, shoulders, and limbs against a mostly white coat.

Although classified in the order Carnivora, giant pandas eat mostly bamboo. They use an enlarged wrist bone, often called a “pseudo-thumb,” to grip bamboo stems. Cubs are born pink, blind, and extremely small compared with their mothers. A common mix-up is assuming every panda is black and white: red pandas are a separate species with reddish fur and a much more distant evolutionary relationship.