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No, you’re not going crazy, and no, that’s not a trick of the light or Photoshop wizardry. That really is a brown panda you see before your eyes.

You’ve probably never heard of or seen a brown panda before, but surprisingly this one is not the first that’s been discovered. Meet Qi Zai, one of only five brown pandas ever found, and currently the only one on the planet!

With habitat destruction bringing their numbers dangerously low, pandas themselves are a rare sight, but even more rare is a panda like Qi Zai, who is not your typical black-and-white ball of fur.

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Image: YouTube/Vic Lai

She was found in 2009 in the Shaanxi Province of western China, and currently lives at the Shaanxi Wild Animal Research Center. It is said that five brown pandas have been found in the mountainous region of Shaanxi since 1985, but Qi Zai is currently the only one in existence.

It is believed that either a genetic disorder or possibly inbreeding could be the cause of the brown coloring, but as of yet nothing has been proved. And while other pandas with brown markings here and there, a completely brown panda like Qi Zai is extremely rare, experts say.

She may not realize how rare and one-of-a-kind she is, but she seems to get how cute she is, and doesn’t seem to mind milking it for all it’s worth!

Source: NAVER Matome
Featured image: YouTube/iPanda4s