Our task was to put our animal that we chose (for example I chose the red panda,) then put it in a completely different habitat and imagine how it would adapt to its new home. I have decided to move the red panda from its cold mountain home and put it in the dry
Savannas of Africa. The place it will stay is under the trees while its sleeping and when is awake it will run around the plains, around probably around 95 km/h, but still not betting the cheetah, which runs 120 km/h. Because its fur color and speed, the new and improved red panda will be called, drum roll please, an African sand runner! (I know it's not the best name but it was my only good idea.)
Savannas of Africa. The place it will stay is under the trees while its sleeping and when is awake it will run around the plains, around probably around 95 km/h, but still not betting the cheetah, which runs 120 km/h. Because its fur color and speed, the new and improved red panda will be called, drum roll please, an African sand runner! (I know it's not the best name but it was my only good idea.)
Drawings by me, they are COPYRIGHTED
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1. Red pandas are commonly known for their red fur, well it's named after it. But bright red and dark red fluff won't be the best for the Savanna, so it will change its fur color so it can camouflage into the dry plains. The fur will become a sandy-ish gold-ish color, much like the fur of a lion and the ears, tip of its tail and wrists will be a brown color to blend in even better like how a lion has a brown mane and tip of tail.
The small 50-65 cm big red panda, weighing 2-6 kg is no match for a 1.4-2 m big lion, weighing a stunning 190 kg! If you have read my page about the adaptations about a red panda, you would know that they used to be giant, but while they will be moving to a place with hardly any trees and much more heavy animals, there isn't much point of being light weighed and small. I think about the size of an adult wolf is appropriate for an African sand runner.
Red pandas don't have much of an defence mechanism. Yes, they do have claws, but there are too small and wouldn't deal much damage. The sand runner has sharp claws that can contract, just like a cats, which means they can push out and pull in their claws whenever needed. Teeth are also very important for battle, because the sand runner needs bite hard, it has sharp teeth to defend and eat, which gets me to my next point...
2. Diet. An important part of life, because hey, how are you going to do stuff like starving to death? The red panda only has the panda part in its name because of the large amount of bamboo it eats. But since when did the dry plains have bamboo? Luckily for the African sand runner it has a diet of rodents, (mice and rats,) small birds, small lizards and eggs of anything it can find. However unlike lions, who stalk their prey, the sand runner, like in its name, chases after its prey and when it catches up to it, it will try to pin it down with its paws. For birds, the sand runner will jump up several times to try and grab it, like when people clap their hands together when a fly goes onto their hand to squash it. It's sort of like that. But catching a fast mouse or a bird that flys too high can be a bit hard doing it by yourself, so here is my last point...
3. Unlike red pandas, the sand runner is a social animal, while the red panda is a solitary creature. Sand runners live in packs of 4-10, and everyone is important. Getting back to diet, sand runners hunt in groups of 2-3 while the rest stay back at the territory to protect it.Like humans, sand runners communicate and make a plan to catch prey. Usually one sand runner will drive a mouse or something like that into the direction of the other sand runner. Yay for teamwork! Meanwhile back at the territory one sand runner will be marking their land. They are quite territorial animals, marking it before and after every meal. If an animal enters theirs area, the sand runner will not be hesitant to attack. If it's an animal larger than the sand runner, they will all jump on top of it at once while batting its head mainly. If they do take down a large animal, (which is 30% of the time) they will not eat it unless extremely starving. Overall they really stick together.