Are pandas real? That sounds a stupid question now. Even if you’ve not seen one in real life or a museum, you’ve almost certainly seen film of pandas in the wild, in reserve, or in a zoo. But until 1927, people in the West doubted they existed at all.

A cute black-and-white bear that only eats bamboo does sound as though it could have been made up. But in a stunning bit of cultural arrogance, travellers and scientists in the West ignored or dismissed all Chinese reports and depictions of pandas until a white western man was able to verify their existence.

First news of the panda hit the benighted West in 1896 when a Christian missionary who was also a natrualist reported back to Paris that a local hunter had brought a ‘most excellent black and white bear’. A dead bear half a world away seen by one man wasn’t enough to convince everyone and many people dismissed it as a hoax until Western explorers actually saw pandas in the wild in 1927. The reality of the panda was established beyond doubt for Americans in 1936 when an expedition led by New York heiress Ruth Harkness captured a panda cub and returned it to the USA. There, she sold it to Brookfield Zoo in Chicago where it inevitably but sadly died in 1938.

The panda, Su Lin, is still on display in the Fields Museum, so if you have any doubt about pandas, and are near Chicago, you can go and take a look.

I’ve written about pandas in Panda School, published by Ransom Publishing, 2025; this book is for children 4-6 learning to read

Find out more about Su Lin