Panda Tinder! Bears use trees like social media or dating apps

Despite their reputation as solitary creatures, pandas have their own scent-based version of social media or dating apps, according to scientists.

Thomas Connor, lead author, did this work for his PhD from Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (MSU-CSIS) and spent months hanging out in China's Wolong Nature Reserve, watching for signs of pandas, since actual pandas are virtually invisible.

"Once you've gotten an eye for it, you can see on ridge tops and different trails the scent-marking trees, which are stained with a waxy substance - and the pandas seem to be doing this a lot," he said. "It was pretty evident they were exchanging information through scent marking behaviour."

To understand the social structure, nearby panda communities were documented, and the study enlisted the expertise of sociometrics expert Ken Frank, a co-author of the study - who compared their behaviour to an animal version of Facebook.

"These scent trees are a social media," he said. "Like Facebook, it's asynchronous, meaning you don't have to be in the same place at the same time. It allows one to broadcast to many, and it's a record. A panda marking a tree isn't so different from a Facebook post."

Comparing them to high school teens with cliques like those in the film Mean Girls, Frank added: "It's pretty much like high school. And like in high school, cliques have lots of implications. There are strong norms within a clique - and while encountering those outside a clique is rare the information can be very important."

The research team used DNA extracted from panda faeces, a reliable trail left by the animals, to identify specific pandas in proximity to the scent-marking trees.

The findings revealed that in non-mating seasons, they tend to associate with family members, while mating seasons see a broader interaction, potentially using scent-marking trees as territory maps. This behavioural change during mating seasons reduces the risk of inbreeding and competition. You could even say it acts like a panda Tinder!