Red pandas are scansorial, but forage primarily on the ground.
Red pandas are scansorial, but forage primarily on the ground.
The usual mode of progression on the ground is by a cross-extension gait; faster movement is by trotting or bounding. A similar cross-extension pattern is used to climb tree trunks, and animals descend head first by gripping the tree trunk medially with the hindfeet. Movement on and between small terminal branches is facilitated by a high degree of flexibility of the pectoral and pelvic girdles and limb joints.
• Image | © Mathias Appel, Public Domain, (CC0 1.0)
• Sources | (Roberts, 1981;Roberts & Gittleman, 1984)
