Giant pandas have a long history. The fossils of the oldest member of the giant panda discovered so far, the Eo panda, were unearthed in Lufeng and Yuanmou, Yunnan, China, with a geological age of about 8 million years ago in the late Miocene. In the long-term and severe competition for survival and natural selection, many animals of their generation have become extinct, but the giant panda is the strong one and has the upper hand, and has become a "living fossil" that has been preserved to this day.
The ancestor of the giant panda is Ailuaractos lufengensis. The standard Chinese name for the giant panda is actually "Mao Xiong", which means "cat-like bear." This is the earliest panda that evolved from ursids and mainly eats carnivores. The main branch of the panda continues to evolve in central and southern China. One of them appeared in the early Pleistocene about 3 million years ago. It is smaller than the panda. It is inferred from the teeth that it has evolved into an omnivore that eats both bamboo and bamboo. , oviparous bears. Since then, this main branch has expanded to the subtropics and is widely distributed in North China, Northwest China, East China, Southwest China, South China, and even Vietnam and northern Myanmar. Fossils have been found. During this process, giant pandas adapted to life in subtropical bamboo forests, and gradually increased in size and relied on bamboo for survival. The middle and late Pleistocene, 500,000 to 700,000 years ago, was the heyday of giant pandas. Giant pandas in life have well-developed molars, and their claws have a "thumb" in addition to five toes. This "thumb" is actually a specialized carpal bone, its scientific name is "radial sesamoid bone", which mainly plays the role of holding bamboo.