Ailuropoda

Ailuropoda; Temporal range: Pliocene - Holocene, Template:Temporal range
	The giant panda, the only extant species in the genus and subfamily.
	Ailuropoda fovealis skull
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Ursidae
Subfamily:	Ailuropodinae; Grevé, 1894
Genus:	''Ailuropoda''; Milne-Edwards, 1870
Species
	†A. baconi; A. melanoleuca; †A. microta; †A. minor; †A. wulingshanensis

Ailuropoda is the only extant genus in the ursid (bear) subfamily Ailuropodinae. It contains one living and four fossil species of giant panda.^[1]

Only one species—Ailuropoda melanoleuca—currently exists; the other four species are prehistoric chronospecies. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivoran, the giant panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo.

Giant pandas have descended from Ailurarctos, which lived during the late Miocene.^[1]

In 2011 fossil teeth from over 11 mya found in the Iberian peninsula were identified as belonging to a previously unidentified species in the Ailuropodinae. This species was named Agriarctos beatrix.

Classification[edit]

†Ailuropoda microta Pei, 1962 (late Pliocene)^{[clarification needed]}
†Ailuropoda wulingshanensis Wang et alii. 1982 (late Pliocene - early Pleistocene)
†Ailuropoda baconi (Woodward 1915) (Pleistocene)
†Ailuropoda minor Pei, 1962 (Pleistocene)^{[clarification needed]}
Ailuropoda melanoleuca (David, 1869)
- Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca (David, 1869)
- Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis Wan Q.H., Wu H. et Fang S.G., 2005
- †Ailuropoda melanoleuca hastorni

Other pandas[edit]

Formerly, the red, or lesser, panda (Ailurus fulgens) was considered closely related to giant pandas. It is no longer considered a bear, however, and is now classified as the sole living representative of a different carnivore family (Ailuridae).

References[edit]

^ ^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:10.1073/pnas.0704198104. PMC 1904166. PMID 17578912. Retrieved 2007-06-19.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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[pnas-1] 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:10.1073/pnas.0704198104. PMC 1904166. PMID 17578912. Retrieved 2007-06-19.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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