Giant pandas,who were named as "living fossils",have lived on earth for at least 8 million years.As the worlds biodiversity conservation flagship species,giant pandas are the first class national protected animals,but the research of mechanics and kinematics of pandas still lag far behind.Giant pandas walk with an iconic pigeon-toed triangle gait.In order to further understand the gait of mechanics of pandas,we analyzed the locomotion kinematics of over 88 complete strides from 12 adults(including 6 male and 6 female pandas,body mass 95-130 Kg)and 6 young pandas individuals(body mass 22-53Kg)using a 2×10 three-dimensional sensor array platform,60 channels data acquisition and processing module,high-speed camera.The study found that the reaction forces(RFs)in normal direction are obviously different between fore-limbs and hind-limbs.In a complete gait,young pandas normal RFs(N)of fore-limbs account for 73.2%of resultant RFs(R)of fore-limbs,while 26.8%for fore-aft and lateral RFs,and fore-aft RFs are about 1.5 times of lateral RFs; the normal RFs of hind-limbs are about 67.9%and fore-aft RFs are about 1.9 times of lateral RFs.While the ratio of N/R of adults are larger than baby pandas.The female pandas fore-limbs are about 75.4%and fore-aft RFs are about 1.9 times of lateral RFs; hind-limbs are about 71.1%and fore-aft RFs are about 1.97 times of lateral RFs.The male fore-limbs are about 77.4%,fore-aft RFs are about 2.3 times of lateral RFs; hind-limbs are about 74.4%,and fore-aft RFs are about 2.1 times of lateral RFs.In addition,baby pandas maximum normal RFs generated by hind-limbs of baby pandas are about 63.2%of the fore-limbs,the maximum normal RFs of adult pandas are about 72.9%and 78.3%of the fore-limbs for male and female ones,respectively.These results reflect that there are obvious differences among young pandas,female and male pandas distribution of normal RFs.Nonetheless,the center of gravity is still located in the anterior part of body in general.We infer that the big round head occupies quite a few proportion of body weight of giant pandas.Moreover,it interesting that the ratio of hind-limbs and fore-limbs normal RFs showing a trend of rise first followed by a decline as age increasing.The research shows that pandas negative maximum fore-aft RFs of fore-limbs is larger than positive maximum(forward RFs is positive),however the negative maximum fore-aft RFs of hind-limbs is smaller than positive maximum ones.This reveals that fore-limbs are mainly used for braking while hind-limbs for driving on the locomotion.By statistical analysis,the young pandas movement cycle is shorter than adult pandas,normalized stride length is longer than adults and fore-limbs duty factor is larger than hind-limb(about 1.04 times of hind-limb),so under the same conditions,young pandas adopt higher stride frequencies and relative larger stride lengths compared to adult pandas.