Lazy pandas are as sluggish as sloths and have underactive thyroids, Chinese researchers find

Giant pandas are the new couch potatoes of the animal world, according to a study that found the bears are just as sluggish as slow-moving sloths.

Researchers in China tracked five captive pandas and three wild ones for the study published in the journal Science.

They found that pandas are far less active than other bears, and expended just 38 per cent as much daily energy as the average among other land animals of their size.

“The daily energy expenditure values for giant pandas are substantially lower than those for koalas, for example, and more akin to those of three-toed sloths,” said the study.

Panda brains, livers and kidneys were also found to be smaller than the organs seen in other bears.

Their thyroid hormone levels “are only a fraction of the mammalian norm - comparable to a hibernating black bear’s hormone levels,” added the study, which identified a gene variation in pandas that matches one seen in humans with underactive thyroids.