SAN DIEGO — The new giant pandas make their public debut Thursday at the San Diego Zoo and police are anticipating such huge crowds that they’ve issued a traffic alert for the area.
So what is it about pandas that makes us love them so much? Turns out, the answer involves science.
“They have something about them that really draws people in and there's a certain term that I think of, sometimes called neoteny,” said Marco Wendt with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Neoteny is the retention of juvenile features in the adult animal.
For example, one of our new pandas, Yun Chuan, is almost 5 years old but he still has baby-like qualities and that triggers something in our brains that makes us want to cuddle and protect him.
“There's been a study that shows that babies have bigger eyes and those ears and makes us more connected,” Wendt said. “You want to protect that baby.”
Yun Chuan's patches make his eyes look bigger, his ridiculously cute ears stick out and, like a human baby, he has a roly-poly body. So it's not your fault you love Pandas, it's Mother Nature's!
And pandas aren't the only animals that get you this way.
“There's another very popular animal here called an axolotl, or ajolote depending on how you want to pronounce it, that also is in that neotenic state,” Wendt said. “And so they have big eyes, they have fringes sort of a childlike feature that that I think humans really gravitate towards.”
Domesticated dogs are another example.
“Eventually through the years of domestication, the wolf started developing larger ears, you know, bigger eyes, a big nose, started waging a tail,” Wendt said. “So all these certain features that we invariably have bred into this particular animal because we connect with it.”
All of that said, pandas, despite their cuteness, do not make great pets. They can attack when threatened and have sharp claws and teeth.
“The pressure of a giant panda's jaw is so powerful that there is some bamboo in the world that they eat that has the fibrous strength of low grade steel... to give you an idea of how powerful the panda can really be,” Wendt added.
Yun Chuan and his Panda Ridge pal Xin Bao are so popular, the zoo is recommending guests secure a timed ticket as soon as you arrive. There is also a standby line, but your wait could be several hours.
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