How do pandas grip bamboo with false thumbs?

Pandas love to eat bamboo. But how do they grip it and eat it, when they have no thumbs?

Fossils found in China are helping scientists get a better idea of one of the wonders of evolution: the giant panda's false thumb. This "thumb" is actually a bone on its wrist, but it helps this bear hold the bamboo.

A bear's hand lacks the opposable thumb that humans have. Our thumbs let us grasp and handle objects using our fingers. The panda's false thumb serves a similar function.

"It uses the false thumb as a very crude thumb to grasp bamboo, sort of like our own thumbs except it is at the wrist and is much shorter than our thumbs," says palaeontologist Wang Xiaoming.