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Like their human companions, 78 pandas in the wild of central China's Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces recently got their identity cards.
On the card are printed two parts of codes, one numerical code representing the country, province, protection zone and family the panda belongs to, and the other a genetic bar code revealing its sex and personal feature.
After over 10 years of efforts, a team of Chinese scientists took the lead in the world to work out gene identity cards for wild pandas. The research was fulfilled at the key laboratory of conservation genetics and reproduction biology for endangered wildlife under the Ministry of Education.
It signals that the account management of pandas has stepped into the genetic era, said Professor Fang Shenghuo with Life Sciences Institute of Zhejiang University, who heads the team.
By recognizing the gene card through the computer, detailed information concerning the panda, including what it looks like, would be obtained immediately.
Only one in 1.6 billion pandas are likely to share the same genetic code, Fang said.
Academic inability has hindered wild animal researches around the globe from obtaining whole-genetic DNA, because it is out of the question to hurt the endangered animal to get samples.
On the other side, excrement and hair, the only traces left by animals in the wild, have in them only scraps of their genes.
However, the development of DNA fingerprinting probe and the extraction methods for genetic DNA of giant panda, initiated by the research group, can extract all the genomic DNA from its' excrement.
Back in 1998, a joint research group with scientists from Zhejiang University, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chengdu University, swept through some 900 square kilometers of area in two protection zones, Foping in Shaanxi Province and Tangjiahe in Sichuan Province, to get excrement and hair samples from pandas.
From the samples, the scientists extracted all of the genetic DNA in laboratory, and further, through a gene probe, obtained their gene fingerprint patterns.
Zhang Anju, a famed panda expert, said that the method has opened a new approach for studying the diversity of pandas, and therefore it is important for not only panda preservation, but also the protection of its living ecology as well.
Authorities in the circle confirmed that this method is applicable to all vegetarians, and can trace the entire family tree of the animal.
"Reagent test shows that there are at least 37 wild pandas in Tangjiahe protection zone, 16 male and 21 female from six different families, five of which have three generations, while Foping protection zone has at least 41, with 17 males and 24 females in eight families," introduced Fang.
As the most endangered species in the world, pandas prefer living alone in high mountains and deep valleys, making it extremely difficult to trace, not to say obtaining their blood or skin samples.
As a result, such background information like species ecology and genetics regarding pandas are not fully learnt, posing insurmountable difficulty to protect the species.
So far, Chinese scientists have already completed a management system on gene identities and an account data system in the two zones.
Fang expected that in time, all wild animal zones will have similar gene data system established.
(Xinhua 02/28/2001)
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