The panda has been the poster animal for endangered and in need of humans’ help for decades. However, when it comes to natural selection, the panda may actually be one of the top species. According to new research, giant pandas have a pretty strong immune system, thanks to its genetic diversity. This new research shows that the cuddly-looking black and white might be more resistant to environmental change than researchers had historically believed.

“The assumption is that a decrease in genetic variation and a lack of exchange between isolated populations increase the likelihood of extinction by reducing the population’s ability to adapt to changing environments,” the team wrote in the study. The paper was published on Monday, Oct. 21 in the open-source journal BioMed Central.

Currently only 1,500 pandas live in the wild around the world, and all of them live in the six mountain ranges in south-central China. As part of the study team, researchers at Zhejiang University in China by collected blood, skin or fecal specimens from 218 wild pandas native to each of the six ranges. By examining these specimens, the team was able to study the panda immune system.

The study focused on the pandas’ major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a set of genes responsible for coding proteins in cells that help the immune system detect foreign entities. The research team chose to study this section of the genome because it is the only one that adapts to environment. Other parts of the genome remain standard across a species, therefore, cannot indicate gene diversity.

What the research team found was that the giant pandas develop immune systems unique to their environment, which means that though a single pathogen can hit pandas in one area, it cannot wipe out the entire species. The study found that the giant panda is more biologically diverse than many endangered animals including the Bengal tiger and Namibian cheetah.

The giant panda has been listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s endangered species for almost two and a half decades. According to biologist Paul Hohenlohe, who was not involved with the study, the results from this study will help conservationists protect the panda population.

“If you need to capture 10 pandas for a captive breeding program, then you choose those 10 to encompass the most diversity,” he said. “You can do that by getting them from multiple populations, or one population that has the most diversity.”