"If I could talk to the animals." in Just Call Me Your Lunatic Friend. Welcome To The Madness.

What is the most amazing animal you can think of? What makes it amazing in your eyes?

This answer has changed throughout the years for me. However, currently I would have to answer that my current favorite is The Red Panda.

This animal amazes not due to any specific skill it may exhibit, but purely by its appearance. The red panda has given scientists taxonomic fits. It has been classified as a relative of the giant panda, and also of the raccoon, with which it shares a ringed tail. Currently, red pandas are considered members of their own unique family—the Ailuridae. (from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/r/red-panda/)

The Red Panda is dwarfed by the lack and white panda that shares its name. These pandas typically grow to the size of a house cat, though their big, bushy tails add an additional 18 inches. The pandas use their ringed tails as wraparound blankets in the chilly mountain heights.

The red panda shares the giant panda’s rainy, high-altitude forest habitat, but has a wider range. Red pandas live in the mountains of Nepal and northern Myanmar (Burma), as well as in central China.

These animals spend most of their lives in trees and even sleep in the branches as well. When foraging, they are most active at night as well as in the gloaming hours of dusk and dawn.

Red pandas have a taste for bamboo but, unlike their larger relatives, they eat many other foods as well—fruit, acorns, roots, and eggs. Like giant pandas, they have an extended wrist bone that functions almost like a thumb and greatly aids their grip.

The Red Panda is considered an “at risk” species due to deforestation. Their numbers are shrinking as more and more forests are destroyed and because of growing agriculture in the area.

My affection for these animals has grown since I learned that the Chattanooga Zoo is home to at least one of these amazing critters. I would post a picture but I do not know how to.

Anyway, that is my vurrent favorite amazing animal. I hope you all take a look at them.