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Sep 18, 2020 · Despite sharing a common name, giant pandas and red pandas are not closely related. Red pandas are the only living members of their taxonomic family, Ailuridae, while giant pandas are in the bear family, Ursidae. The red panda was first classified and given its scientific name, Ailurus fulgens, in 1825. Giant pandas were described much later ...
- Panda Species' Names. Why Are Pandas Called Pandas? Bamboo is all pandas' main food. "Panda" means 'bamboo-eater'. It is interesting that red pandas and giant pandas are both called "pandas" in English.
- Pandas' Differing Appearances and Characteristics. Appearance. Weight. Length of body. Red panda: raccoon-like, with reddish-brown fur. ~5 kg (11 lb) ~50 cm (20 inches)
- Panda Taxonomy Differences. Giant pandas: Ursidae animal family. They are classified as bears. Red pandas: Ailuridae animal family. They are classified as the only only extant (not yet extinct) species in their family.
- Differences in Panda Diet - 99% Bamboo + Other Foods. Giant pandas can exist almost entirely on bamboo. Sometimes even 99 percent of their diet is bamboo!
- Turning red. Or black and white? Firstly, the most obvious difference. At a standing height of five to six feet and a weighing up to 250 pounds (113 kg), the giant panda—and its higher altitude, slightly slighter subspecies the Qinling panda—is roughly comparable to a stocky, weighty human.
- Red in tooth and claw. The word ‘panda’ has an ambiguous origin, but one theory is that it is from either the Nepali nigalya ponya (‘bamboo eater’) or paja (‘claw’).
- Bearing up. The plot thickens when we consider how the giant panda got its name. It was a French missionary and naturalist named Père Armand David who, whilst roaming the Baoxing county in China's Sichuan Province, first brought the animal to western attention—in 1869, when he saw the shot carcass of a 'whitebear', as he called it.
- Furry fossils. Milne-Edwards questioned the strange creature's classification, claiming the skull, teeth and claws made it more physiologically aligned with a certain red haired, bamboo-eating member of the raccoon family described 40 years before—though clearly having climbed a good way along its own evolutionary branch.
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Jul 10, 2008 · Some DNA studies have shown that the giant panda is closer to the bear family while the red panda is indeed closer to the raccoon family. Nevertheless, these results are inconclusive, and the argument remains unresolved.
- Jane Mcgrath
Jul 7, 2014 · The red panda is not related to the giant panda. The giant panda belongs to the Ursidae family (Bears) and the red panda belongs to its own taxonomically unique Family: Ailuridae. The giant panda and the red panda do however share some of the same characteristics and a common ancestor.
The red panda's place on the evolutionary tree has been debated, but modern genetic evidence places it in close affinity with raccoons, weasels, and skunks. It is not closely related to the giant panda, which is a bear, though both possess elongated wrist bones or "false thumbs" used for grasping bamboo.
Feb 26, 2020 · By Helen Briggs,BBC News. Getty Images. Red panda: Endangered in the wild, its survival looks precarious. The red panda is not one species but two, according to DNA evidence. Already endangered...
