In China pandas are known as “da xiongmao” (“big bear cats”). Their scientific name is Ailuropoda melanoleuca (“black and white cat-footed bear”).
The word pandemonium was coined in 1936 to describe the reception that a panda received when it was first put on display in the West. The first panda to be seen in Europe and America was a cub named Su-Lin (“something very cute”), brought from Sichuan province by a rich socialite named Ruth Harkness. With extensive media coverage the cub was first displayed at the Chicago zoo, drawing a crowd of 54,000, a number that has yet to be repeated. While cameras clicked away, Harkness, dressed in a fur with a cigarette dangling from her lips, fed the panda with a baby bottle. Harkness sold Su-Lin to a Chicago zoo for $14,000 (the animal died a year later).
The panda oddly enough is a carnivore not a herbivore: its stomach and intestines are adapted for meat and its teeth are so strong they can chew through metal!! The panda oesophagus has a tough, horny lining to protect it from sharp, bamboo splinters. The stomach is thick and muscular. The rest of the digestive system is similar or that of other carnivores but because it doesn’t eat meat is lightly used.
Japanese researchers have found a bacteria in panda dung that has shown to be more effective in breaking down organic garbage than almost any other known substance in the world. In one experiment the bacteria broke down 100 kilograms of waste into three kilograms after 17 weeks, producing only water and carbon dioxide as by products.
An average panda is about five to six feet in length including its tail, and weighs between 185 and 245 pounds. Males and females are identically marked but males tend to be 10 percent to 20 percent bigger.
Pandas have a clumsy pigeon-toed walk but can move on all fours with great speed through the forest environment where they live. They can stand erect on their hind legs but generally don’t walk. Pandas are very flexible and can contort themselves in to almost any shape and relax in any position they find themselves in.
At birth, panda cubs typically weigh 4-8oz (100–200g) and measure around 6 inches (15cm) long.
Pandas seem to negotiate their way through the forest by eating their way through the dense bamboo. They typically eat in a sitting position, nap when satiated, move on a little further and repeat the process. On average a panda eats about half of its body weight each day.
Pandas have very large olfactory regions in their brains. They can sense what is happening with pandas up to several miles away just by using their sense of smell.
Pandas fear few predators other than man. The thick bamboo thickets where they live offer good protection. Their short, squat shape allows them to slip more easily through the undergrowth than even a leopard. Pandas generally move in a very restrained way, presumably to conserve energy. When threatened they trot rather than gallop, like other bears, and generally make a beeline for the nearest tree to climb.
Individual pandas often display very individualist behaviour. Some are shy and prefer to be by themselves. Some are more social, active and rambunctious.
Because of their perceived solitary nature, captive pandas in zoos were often kept apart from one other. This was a mistake. Now zoo pandas are allowed to mix with one another. Scientists have observed they interact with each other for about half of their waking hours, playing with one another and often eating and sleeping near one another.
To handle such a large amount of tough food, pandas have large, muscular jaws equipped with enormous large, flat molars for grinding the bamboo. They have claws that are ideal for hooking stems and opposable “thumbs” that allow the pandas to hold to bamboo while they eat it. Only pandas, monkeys and apes can bend a thumb or thumb-like appendage to grasp.
Pandas themselves date back to around 600,000 years ago. At one time they ranged throughout southeast Asia and as far north as Beijing. For many centuries pandas were thought to be a mythical beast like a dragon or unicorn.
The remaining 2,000 wild pandas are now found only in the mountains of central China; in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.
danilovescats - travels 
If, as this article states, it was a mistake to keep pandas isolated then why does the Atlanta zoo seperate their pandas?
I don’t know – you should ask them, referencing the fact that China and their breeding facilities (such as Chengdu, one of the main breeding centres in the world) ensures the animals are kept in groups.