Ailuropoda microta

The Pygmy Giant Panda (Ailuropoda microta) is the earliest known ancestor of the Giant Panda. It measures 1 m (3 ft.) in length; modern giant pandas grow to a size in excess of 1.5 m (5 ft.). Wear patterns on its teeth suggests it lived on a diet of bamboo, the primary food of modern pandas. The first discovered skull of the animal in China is estimated to be 2 million years old.^[1]

References

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. Retrieved on 2007-06-19. 

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