A panda family tree
To understand what lies behind the trait, the researchers studied Qizai, a male brown panda rescued as a cub in 2009 from Foping National Nature Reserve in Hanzhong. He is currently the only brown panda in captivity.

When compared under a microscope with hair samples from three black-and-white pandas, Qizai’s brownish fur had fewer and smaller melanosomes, tiny structures found in cells that are responsible for skin and hair pigment in mammals. What’s more, the melanosomes were more likely to be irregularly shaped, the study team found.

The researchers then gathered genetic information about Qizai and pieced together his family tree. Fresh scat, or bear poop, gathered kraken12 at the nature reserve revealed the identity of his wild mother, a black-and-white female panda that wears a tracking collar and is known as Niuniu.

The researchers also identified Qizai’s son, a black-and-white panda born in captivity in 2020. (The study team later identified Qizai’s father, Xiyue, a wild but tracked black-and-white panda, by studying the genetics of a wider population of pandas.)