Ailuropoda

Taxobox
name = "Ailuropoda"

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image_caption =
fossil_range = Late Pliocene to Recent
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Carnivora
familia = Ursidae
genus = "Ailuropoda"
genus_authority = Milne-Edwards, 1870
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision = †"A. baconi"
"A. melanoleuca"
†"A. microta"
†"A. minor"
†"A. wulingshanensis" "Ailuropoda" is an ursid genus containing five species of giant pandascite journal |last=Jin |first=Changzhu |coauthors=Russell L. Ciochon, Wei Dong, Robert M. Hunt Jr., Jinyi Liu, Marc Jaeger and Qizhi Zhu |date=June 19 2007 |title=The first skull of the earliest giant panda |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=104 |issue=26 |pages=10932–10937 |url=http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0704198104v1 |format=PDF; fee required|accessdate= 2007-06-19 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0704198104 |pmid=17578912 ] . Only one species, the Giant Panda ("Ailuropoda melanoleuca") currently exists; the other four species are prehistoric chronospecies. Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo.

Pandas are descended from "Ailurarctos", which lived during the late Miocene.

Classification

*†"Ailuropoda microta" (late Pliocene)
*†"Ailuropoda wulingshanensis" (late Pliocene - early Pleistocene)
*†"Ailuropoda baconi" (Pleistocene)
*†"Ailuropoda minor" (Pleistocene)
*"Ailuropoda melanoleuca"
**"Ailuropoda melanoleuca melanoleuca"
**"Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis"

References