Red pandas are arboreal and prefer residing in conifer or fir trees.
The red panda is found between 2,200 and 4,800 meters in temperate forests of the Himalayas and high mountains of northern Burma and western Sichuan and Yunnan. The distribution is associated closely with temperate montane forests with dense bamboo-thicket understories and mixed deciduous-coniferous forests dominated by Abies, Tsuga, Aesculus, Juglans, Quervus, and Acer.
Conifer and fir forests seem to be preferred by red pandas over oak mixed and mixed broad-leaf conifer forests. Habitats above the tree-line are probably not consistently occupied given that the red panda is essentially arboreal.
• Image | © Mathias Appel, Public Domain, (CC0 1.0)
• Sources | (Allen, 1938; Choudhury 2001; Feng, Zheng, & Cai, 1981; Glatston, Wei, Than Zaw, & Sherpa, 2015; Mierow & Shrestha, 1978; Roberts & Gittleman, 1984; Sowerby, 1932; Stainton, 1972; Vaurie, 1972; Yonzon, Jones, & Fox, 1991)
