Pandas basically eat salad all day and yet they are adorably plump, why? Well, they munch on bamboo all year round but the part of the plant that they chomp on changes seasonally, and so does their weight thanks to special microbes living in their gut. during summertime pandas eat more shoots while the rest of the year they're chowing down on leaves and shoots, which are like the initial spurt of the bamboo pack more nutrients and pounds onto them than leaves, this is at least partially because bacteria and giant pandas’ guts called c butyricum grow more quickly when giant pandas eat shoots. that bacterium makes Butyrate a chemical that affects fat metabolism genes. So, panda's body fat changes based on what they eat more butyrate more fat storage and storing fat helps them migrate and reproduce. Researchers found this out by giving mice a bit of panda microbiome and saw that more butyrate made mice heftier too not bad for a bunch of greens.