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A wild panda was spotted in a village in northwest China's Gansu Province on Thursday, according to local residents.

A wild panda was spotted in a village in northwest China's Gansu Province on Thursday. [Photo/Xinhua]

The panda was found by villagers from the Tibetan E'er Village, at about 10 a.m. on Thursday when the villagers were attending a religious ritual. About 2,000 meters above sea level, E'er is only a few kilometers away from the Gansu Chagangliang Nature Reserve where four wild pandas live.

"We recognized it was a wild panda very quickly, because it looked the same as on TV," said Yang Haihu, who reported the sighting to the township government.

While the villagers watched the panda from 200 meters, it walked into a wheat field and had a bite of the immature wheat. Obviously the taste was not as good as bamboo because it soon left the scene and wandered into the forest roughly five hours after it was first seen.

The panda was a healthy adult, according to the local wild animal protection administration.

A number of panda experts arrived in the village on Friday morning.

The giant panda lives mainly in the mountains of China's southwestern province of Sichuan and northwestern provinces Shaanxi and Gansu. They are threatened by habitat loss and a very low birthrate.

Only about 1,600 still exist in the wild, and some 300 live in captivity around the world.

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