Ronny and Friends

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Although it is hard to capture in words exactly what red pandas are like, Anna Kendrick, the actress who starred in both “Pitch Perfect” movies, among others, came as close as anyone after she had been panda-struck at Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn.

On “Late Night” with Seth Meyers, she said: “They’re like a fox and a raccoon and a bear and a dog and a cat. They’re like every adorable animal in one animal.” Darwin could not have said it better.

And they are in trouble. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which assesses the status of wild populations of animals, estimates that about 10,000 live in the wild, in two subspecies, all on mountain slopes in a narrow band running from western China to Nepal. Deforestation and disease threaten them now, and climate change looms.

They are listed as vulnerable, by the I.U.C.N., although some scientists are pushing to have them classified as endangered, the next step up.

They live in mixed forests with an undergrowth of bamboo, at an altitude of 4,600 to 15,000 feet, Dr. Freeman said — a limited ecological niche. Like giant pandas, they feed primarily on bamboo, although they apparently supplement that with eggs, small birds and insects.

Their closest relatives are probably raccoons, but their ancestors and raccoon ancestors split into separate evolutionary lineages about 26 million years ago. And they are not closely related to giant pandas, although both feed on bamboo. The giant panda is in the bear family, and the red panda is the only species in the family Ailuridae.

A red panda cub being weighed before its 6:30 a.m. feeding at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times

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