UI anthropologist, colleagues discover remains of earliest giant panda

The ancestor of today's giant panda really was a pygmy giant panda, says Russell Ciochon, UI professor of anthropology. Ciochon (pronounced schuh-HON) is a co-author of an article published in the June 18-22 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Previous discoveries of teeth and other remains made between 1985 and 2002 had failed to establish the animal's size.

Ciochon says that the ancient panda (formally known as Ailuropoda microta, or “pygmy giant panda”) was probably about three feet in length, compared to the modern giant panda, which averages in excess of five feet in length. Also, like it's modern counterpart, it lived on bamboo shoots, as indicated by wear patterns recorded on teeth and specialized muscle markings, indicating heavy chewing, on the skull.

The new find, made about 18 months ago in a south China karst (limestone) cave by Chinese researchers and co-authors Changzhu Jin and Jinyi Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, shows that the basic anatomy of the giant panda has remained largely unchanged for millions of years.

Ciochon says that the skull –, about one-half the size of a modern-day giant panda skull, but anatomically very similar — indicates that the giant panda has evolved for more than three million years as a separate lineage apart from other bears and was adapted to eating bamboo very early in its development.

“Pandas are very unique bears -– the only bear species that is known to exist wholly on a vegetarian diet,” says Ciochon. “The evolution of this unique dietary specialization probably took millions of years to refine. Our new discovery shows the great time depth of this unique bamboo-eating specialization in pandas. Thus, pandas have been ‘uniquely pandas’ for many millions of years says Ciochon.”

Ciochon says that the find further helps establish conditions that existed in the region during the varying climatic conditions of the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs, stretching back some three millions years before the present. The pygmy giant panda lived in lowland tropical bamboo forests. It is often found associated with the extinct elephant-like creature, Stegodon, and the giant extinct ape, Gigantopithecus. Today's giant panda is isolated in mountainous upland bamboo forests, partly due to the pressure of modern civilization.

Ciochon, anthropology professor and department chair in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, says that he plans to return to China this November to explore new cave sites in collaboration with Chinese colleagues. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Ciochon is internationally recognized for his contributions to the fields of primate paleontology and paleoanthropology in Asia concerning “anthropoid origins” and Homo erectus evolution and dispersal.

Media Contact

Gary Galluzzo EurekAlert!

More Information:

http://www.uiowa.edu

All latest news from the category: Life Sciences and Chemistry

Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.

Valuable information can be found on a range of life sciences fields including bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, genetics, geobotany, human biology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, zoology, bioinorganic chemistry, microchemistry and environmental chemistry.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors