Researchers from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) in collaboration with researchers from the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC), the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and the University of Valencia (UV) published this week in the prestigious journalPLOS ONEa work that describes anew genus of ursid, Kretzoiarctos, which places theorigin of the giant panda lineage in Spain between 11 and 12 million years ago.
Thepanda gigante Ailuropoda melanoleuca, which currently only lives in China and feeds mainly on bamboo, would have evolved from more basal forms, of which the oldest remains have been found in the Abocador de Can Mata (els Hostalets de Pierola, Barcelona) and Nombrevilla (Daroca, Zaragoza).
Until recently, fossil remains from the Chinese Upper Miocene, between 7 and 8 million years ago, were the oldest of the Ailuropodinae, the group that includes today’s pandas and the known extinct forms of the giant pandas. In recent years, papers have been published presenting the oldest fossil remains of this group found in Europe, but the record was poor and did not allow us to draw too many conclusions. In the work just published by the team headed by Juan Abella, from the MNCN, new giant panda remains are documented that allow us to describe the oldest basal genus.Kretzoiarctosis the name given to this new extinct giant panda, in memory of the Greek paleontologist Miklós Kretzoi, who for many years led the excavations of the famous sites in Rudabánya (Hungary).
With the remains found so far, the giant panda lineage would have its origins in the Iberian Peninsula, extending during the Middle Miocene through Eurasia. During the Plio-Pleistocene the distribution of this group would have been reduced only to China and Southeast Asia. According to genetic methods, ailuropodins would have separated from the other current bear subfamilies during the Lower Miocene, about 20 million years ago.
