China: discoveries on giant panda ancestry

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Chinese, French scientists pinpoint giant panda’s birthplace

CHENGDU, Nov. 21, (Xinhuanet) — Longgupo of Wushan Mountain in southwest China’s Sichuan province may be the birthplace of giant pandas, a recent archaeological discovery suggests.

According to Huang Wanbo, a prestigious Chinese anthropologist and researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science, Chinese and French archaeologists have recently concluded a study of evacuated animal fossils at Longgupo and believe Longgupo is where giant pandas originated.

More than 10 kinds of animal fossils, including fossils of rhinoceroses, antelopes and giant pandas, were unearthed in a 400-sq-m cave there at an altitude of 1,200 meters, he said.

The giant panda fossils are about 80,000 to 100,000 years old.

Fossils of Ailuropoda micrta, which means “pandas of small size,” were spotted here in Longgupo in 1984.

Ailuropoda micrta lived anywhere from approximately 1.8 million to 2.48 million years ago and is believed to be the ancestor of giant pandas.

The discovery of the giant panda fossils prove Longgupo to be the birthplace of the rare animal, Huang said.