The reason why giant pandas only exist in China is that their evolutionary history and living environment are closely related to China's special geographical and climatic conditions.
1. The ancestors of giant pandas can be traced back to China 8 million years ago, and fossil evidence suggests that they are a species unique to China.
2. The survival of giant pandas cannot do without bamboo, and China's abundant bamboo resources provide them with a food foundation for survival.
3. China's diverse geographical environment, especially the mountainous areas of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu, provides suitable habitats for giant pandas.
4. China's relatively stable climate conditions are conducive to the survival and reproduction of giant pandas.
5. Due to the special survival needs of giant pandas, they have not been able to establish populations in other regions, thus becoming a unique species in China.
The Origin and Evolution of Giant Pandas
The giant panda, this black and white national treasure, has a direct ancestor that can be traced back to the late Miocene of the Tertiary period 8 million years ago. According to the fossils of the first panda unearthed in Lufeng, Yunnan, China in 1989 and Yuanmou in 1991, the first panda is a transitional species between the ancestral bear and the giant panda. The initial panda had a smaller body size than the later giant panda subspecies, but its premolars were more similar to those of the giant panda subspecies and already possessed the characteristics of a giant panda.
About 5.6 million years ago, the giant panda subspecies emerged, with a wider distribution range than the original panda. In the late Early Pleistocene more than one million years ago, the Wuling Mountain subspecies of giant pandas emerged. Its body size is larger than that of the giant panda subspecies, but smaller than the later emergence of the Babu giant panda, and it is considered a transitional type between the giant panda subspecies and the Babu giant panda. However, by the mid Pleistocene, the population of giant panda subspecies gradually decreased and tended towards extinction. The subspecies of Wuling Mountain are gradually disappearing.
The survival challenges of giant pandas
The replacement for them is the subspecies of giant panda known as the Pasteur. However, due to climate and other factors, the Babu giant panda had already disappeared in large numbers and eventually become extinct by the end of the last glacial period 12000 years ago. The transitional zone between the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the Qinghai Tibet Plateau is less affected by human interference and has a stable climate, allowing the current species of giant pandas to survive to this day.
The reason why giant pandas mainly exist in China is multifaceted. Firstly, the ancestors of giant pandas were widely distributed in East China, South China, Myanmar, and northern Vietnam. However, with the deterioration of their living environment, their range of activity gradually narrowed to the present-day Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi regions. The mountains and forests in these areas are humid and rainy, with an annual precipitation of over 120 centimeters, providing a suitable habitat for giant pandas. Secondly, there are more than 300 kinds of bamboos in China, and the main food source of giant pandas is bamboos, among which they especially like to eat Shennong arrow bamboo, Yazhu and Luohanzhu. These abundant natural resources provide necessary conditions for the survival of giant pandas.
Naming of giant pandas
As for the name of the giant panda, it was originally called a panda or a big panda, meaning that its face is round and chubby like a cat, but its entire body shape is like a bear. Due to the change in the writing style of Chinese from straight script to horizontal script in history, there has been a spread of "panda" mistakenly referred to as "cat bear".
The official discovery and naming of giant pandas began in 1869 when French naturalist Father Armand David discovered them at the Dengchigou Catholic Church in Baoxing County, Ya'an, Sichuan Province. Initially, giant pandas were named Ursus melanolcucus, and later identified by mammalian scientist Alphonse Miller Edwards at the French National Museum of Natural History as Ailuropoda melanoleuca. Nowadays, the Chinese name for giant pandas has been widely accepted by people.
Since then, the taxonomic status of giant pandas has been controversial until the results of genome sequencing in 2008 supported the view that giant pandas are a subfamily of the Ursidae family.
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