Ailuropoda
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Ailuropoda Fossil range: Late Pliocene to Recent |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Ursidae |
| Genus: | Ailuropoda Milne-Edwards, 1870 |
| Species | |
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†A. baconi |
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Ailuropoda is an ursid genus containing five species of giant pandas[1]. Only one species, the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) currently exists; the other four species are prehistoric chronospecies. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo.
Pandas are descended from Ailurarctos, which lived during the late Miocene[1].
[edit] Classification
- †Ailuropoda microta (late Pliocene)
- †Ailuropoda wulingshanensis (late Pliocene - early Pleistocene)
- †Ailuropoda baconi (Pleistocene)
- †Ailuropoda minor (Pleistocene)
- Ailuropoda melanoleuca
[edit] References
- ^ a b Jin, Changzhu; Russell L. Ciochon, Wei Dong, Robert M. Hunt Jr., Jinyi Liu, Marc Jaeger and Qizhi Zhu (June 19, 2007). "The first skull of the earliest giant panda" (PDF; fee required). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (26): 10932–10937. doi:. PMID 17578912. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0704198104v1. Retrieved 2007-06-19.
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