Giant pandas found to have sweet tooth, suggesting they once ate more than bamboo

Giant pandas eat plenty of vegetables, but apparently they like dessert, too.

Scientists studying the endangered black-and-white bears said on Thursday that while pandas almost exclusively eat bamboo, which contains only tiny amounts of sugars, they showed a strong preference for natural sweeteners in an experiment.

The researchers also examined panda DNA and found a match to the same "sweet receptor" gene that humans possess that underpins their ability to taste sugars.

Sweeter foods like fruit may have been part of the natural diet of pandas before human activities helped drive the animals into their current mountainous habitat where those foods are scarce, the researchers said.

"Giant pandas love sweets," said behavioural geneticist author Danielle Reed of the Monell Chemical Senses Centre in Philadelphia, who led the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Pandas inhabit bamboo forests high in the mountains of western China. Understanding what type of food they prefer may help determine what nutrients can be used to supplement bamboo in their diet as part of efforts to conserve them, the researchers said.