FRONT ROYAL, Va. — The five red panda cubs in large boxlike cribs at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute here are bottle-fed, sleepy and wobbly on their legs. They have bandit masks and thick, rich fur, and they make soft squealing noises and something called a huff-quack, which sounds like … a huff-quack.

They are surrounded by silly grins as they are lifted out and fed — wide, involuntary and irrepressible face-splitting smiles. No one — scientist, reporter or photographer — is immune to the baby panda smile reflex.

The scientific literature reflects the red panda’s appeal. Frédéric Cuvier, who published the first Western scientific description of the animal in 1825, deemed it “quite the most handsome mammal in existence.” One of the foremost modern authorities, Angela Glatston, in a book she edited about red panda biology, described the animal as “flamboyantly clad in chestnut, chocolate and cream,” and called it “a creature of great beauty and charm.”

Although it is hard to capture in words exactly what red pandas are like, Anna Kendrick, the actress who starred in both “Pitch Perfect” movies, among others, came as close as anyone after she had been panda-struck at Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn.