Ailuropoda microta
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| Ailuropoda microta Temporal range: Late Pliocene |
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|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Ursidae |
| Genus: | Ailuropoda |
| Species: | A. microta |
| Binomial name | |
| Ailuropoda microta |
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Ailuropoda microta, rarely called the Dwarf Panda, Dwarf Giant Panda, or Pygmy Giant Panda, is the earliest known ancestor of the Giant Panda. It measured 1 m (3 ft.) in length; the modern Giant Panda grows to a size in excess of 1.5 m (5 ft.). Wear patterns on its teeth suggest it lived on a diet of bamboo, the primary food of the Giant Panda. The first discovered skull of the animal in a south China limestone cave is estimated to be 2 million years old.[1] The skull found is about half the size of a modern day giant panda, but is anatomically very similar. This research suggests that the giant panda has evolved for more than three million years as a completely separate lineage from that of other bears.
[edit] References
- ^ Jin, Changzhu; Russell L. Ciochon, Wei Dong, Robert M. Hunt Jr., Jinyi Liu, Marc Jaeger and Qizhi Zhu (2007-06-26). "The first skull of the earliest giant panda" (pdf). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (26): 10932–10937. doi:10.1073/pnas.0704198104. PMC 1904166. PMID 17578912. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0704198104v1. Retrieved 2007-06-19.
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