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Do pandas prefer Pepsi over Pepsi Max? Do pandas prefer Pepsi over Pepsi Max?
(5 months later)
During her recent visit to China, US First During her recent visit to China, US First Lady Michelle Obama dangled a slice of apple in front of one of the cuddly inmates at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. By some curious coincidence, researchers published a paper – on the very same day – revealing how pandas perceive foods that taste sweet to humans.
Lady Michelle Obama dangled a slice of apple in front of one of the cuddly “Pandas love sugar,” says Danielle Reed, a chemist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and one of the authors of the PLOS ONE paper.
inmates at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. By some curious At an anecdotal level, this much has been obvious for decades. In the 1960s, for instance, the keepers at London Zoo became aware that their lone panda – a very famous individual called Chi-Chi – had a secret addiction. “Chi-Chi ate much chocolate throughout her life,” admitted the Zoological Society of London’s curator of mammals after her death in 1972. But the new research takes a more systematic look at the giant panda’s appetite for sweetness.
coincidence, researchers published a paper – on the very same day – revealing Reed and her colleagues conducted some Pepsi Challenge-like taste tests on captive pandas at the Shaanxi Wild Animal Rescue and Research Center at Louguantai in Shaanxi Province, China. Animals were given two bowls of water, one plain and the other spiked with a sweetener. The set-up allowed researchers to quantify the panda’s hunger for a variety of compounds and in different concentrations. Their favourite was fructose. “In all testing sessions, they finished the entire 1 liter of fructose solution and drank very little water,” the authors note. The pandas also had a taste for other natural sugars, including glucose, sucrose and galactose.
how pandas perceive foods that taste sweet to humans. At one level this is not particularly surprising. Animals that consume plants usually boast functional sweet taste receptors, helping them to pick out the most succulent, sugar-rich greenery on which to feed. But the panda’s diet is made up almost exclusively from bamboo, a grass that contains very little sugar. Why, if they can taste sweet and like it, do they not deviate more often from the sensory boredom of bamboo?
“Pandas love sugar,” says Danielle Reed, a The authors suggest several explanations. Bamboo might contain some as-yet-unidentified compound that happens to activate the panda’s sweet receptors. Alternatively, the sweet receptors could help the panda to “taste” sugars elsewhere in the body, (the monosaccharaides that have been freed up in the gut by the panda’s “friendly” bacteria, for instance). Another possibility, and something of a cop-out, is that pandas still have functional sweet receptors because they haven't yet lost them.
chemist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and So far so sensible. Less so is the researchers’ decision to carry out a second set of experiments on the captive pandas, testing their taste for artificial sweeteners. The explanation for choosing these fake sugars? “Because they also have been tested in other Carnivora species, as well as many other mammalian species and they are chemically and structurally diverse.”
one of the authors of the PLOS ONE I read this sentence, then I read it again, and I still can’t see the rationale. Unless of course, the authors were interested to know whether pandas would prefer Pepsi over Pepsi Max. Based on their findings, it’s likely that they would. Pandas – like most humans – don’t particularly go for aspartame.
paper. Jiang P, Josue-Almqvist J, Jin X, Li X, Brand JG, et al. (2014) The Bamboo-Eating Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) Has a Sweet Tooth: Behavioral and Molecular Responses to Compounds That Taste Sweet to Humans. PLoS ONE 9(3): e93043. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093043
At an anecdotal level, this much has been
obvious for decades. In the 1960s, for instance, the keepers at London Zoo
became aware that their lone panda – a very famous individual called Chi-Chi –
had a secret addiction. “Chi-Chi ate much chocolate
throughout her life,” admitted the Zoological Society of London’s curator of
mammals after her death in 1972. But the new research takes a more systematic
look at the giant panda’s appetite for sweetness.
Reed and her colleagues conducted some Pepsi
Challenge-like taste tests on captive pandas at the Shaanxi
Wild Animal Rescue and Research Center at Louguantai in Shaanxi Province, China.
Animals were given two bowls of water, one plain and the other spiked with a
sweetener. The set-up allowed researchers to quantify the panda’s hunger for a
variety of compounds and in different concentrations. Their favourite was
fructose. “In all testing sessions, they finished
the entire 1 liter of fructose solution and drank very little water,” the
authors note. The pandas also had a taste for other natural sugars, including
glucose, sucrose and galactose.
At one level this is not particularly
surprising. Animals that consume plants usually boast functional sweet taste
receptors, helping them to pick out the most succulent, sugar-rich greenery on
which to feed. But the panda’s diet is made up almost exclusively from bamboo,
a grass that contains very little sugar. Why, if they can taste sweet and like
it, do they not deviate more often from the sensory boredom of bamboo?
The authors suggest several
explanations. Bamboo might contain some as-yet-unidentified compound
that happens to activate the panda’s sweet receptors. Alternatively, the sweet receptors could help the panda to “taste”
sugars elsewhere in the body, (the monosaccharaides that have been freed up in the gut by
the panda’s “friendly” bacteria, for instance). Another possibility, and something of a cop-out, is that pandas still have functional sweet receptors because they haven't yet lost them.
So far so sensible. Less so is the
researchers’ decision to carry out a second set of experiments on the captive pandas, testing their taste for artificial
sweeteners. The explanation for choosing these fake sugars? “Because they also have been tested in other
Carnivora species, as well as many other mammalian species and they are
chemically and structurally diverse.”
I read this sentence, then I read it
again, and I still can’t see the rationale.
Unless of course, the authors were interested to know whether pandas would
prefer Pepsi over Pepsi Max. Based on their findings, it’s likely that they
would. Pandas – like most humans – don’t particularly go for aspartame.
Jiang P, Josue-Almqvist J, Jin X, Li X, Brand JG, et al. (2014) The Bamboo-Eating Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) Has a Sweet Tooth: Behavioral and Molecular Responses to Compounds That Taste Sweet to Humans. PLoS ONE 9(3):
e93043.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093043