Hunger drove a wild panda to break into a Chinese farmer's pig pen and eat the animals' food, which was meat and bone, rather than bamboo.

State-run China Central Television said the giant panda had apparently descended from the mountains in a region of Southwest China's Sichuan province and was spotted in a field before its discovery inside the pig pen, chewing on bones and spitting out the meat.

After eating its fill, the panda left quietly.

While it is classified as a carnivore, the giant panda's diet consists primarily of bamboo, though it also eats honey, eggs, fish, oranges and bananas when they are available.

Scientists believe there are around 1,600 giant pandas living in the wild in China, mostly in the mountains of the southwest.