Class: MAMMALIA

Order: CARNIVORA

Family: URSIDAE

Genus: AILURPODA

Species: MELANOLEUCA

About 600 or so Giant Pandas live in captivity worldwide. This is a male, part of a pair that lives, at time of writing, in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2023, after an extended loan, he, and his mate, will have to return to their Chinese homeland.

This average-sized bear, native to three provinces of mountainous China, is also the only living species in its genus. For years, it was thought that it bore no subspecies, until 2005 – when genetic evidence showed that ‘standard’ pandas and the Qinling pandas, which have a brownish coat, were distinct, more so than other populations of panda. The Qinling Panda is by far the rarer of the two subspecies, and is not managed in captivity. For years, it was also disputed as to what family the panda belonged to – namely, whether it was a true bear like the other seven, or instead belonged to the family comprising raccoons, red pandas, and so forth. Contenders for an origin closer to raccoons argue that the red panda grips and eats bamboo in a similar manner, though anti-contenders argue that this could simply be a result of convergent evolution, and that as far as the species’ morphology goes, the giant panda shares far more in similarity to the true bears than the family of raccoons and allies – As compared to raccoons, its snout is far wider, is much larger, and an elongated tail, as is characteristic of raccoons, is not present, instead, a more stubby, bear-like tail is. Today, the giant panda is recognised as a true bear, as one of eight. Of the eight bear species, it is thought to be the most ancient – fossil remains attributed to pandas are as old as 20 or so million years. Fossilised evidence also indicates a European, as opposed to Asian, origin for pandas. It is also thought that ancestral panda’s diets were more varied, with a primarily bamboo diet originating perhaps some 5,000 years ago.