Randy Bennett, age 11, of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, for his question:

Where does the real panda live?

The giant panda is so attractive that we borrowed his design to model a cuddly toy. You might expect to see him in zoos, enjoying life along with bears, tigers and other popular toy models. But this is not likely. The London zoo has a pampered panda and the Moscow zoo has another. Perhaps there are a few others but pandas in captivity are very, very rare. Possibly they are rare in the wilds also. We are not certain of tkis because the charming creature is very shy and he lives in a very remote part of the world.

His native home is in the Himalayas of Tibet, the southwestern corner of China. There on the open hillsides he lives among forests of tall, tangled bamboos, and there he hides to keep himself out of sight when people pass by. The big black and white fellow may be six feet tall and weigh 300 pounds. He looks like a bear and belongs to the bear family