In the "general zoo misconceptions" thread Zooboy mentioned that Giant Panda's could possibly not be classified with bears but rather racoons..? I remember vaguely hearing this on either Animal Planet, Natural Geographic channel etc... Can someone please explain the debate to me..? What are people's opinions..?
ive heard about the debat around red panda's classification and all the awapping that occured there but never giant panda. that sounds intersting..
i know beleive they are classified as bears, denttion/dentation (sorry teeth one lol), as well as dna testing etc- dont quote me though- again saw it on a doco
its funny that it was mentioined as the idea that giant pandas are related to racoons is a very old one and has not been considered accurate for a long time. DNA studies confirmed the obvious, they very much deserve their position as a species of bear. the idea of them as racoons came from the belief that the two "panda" species were indeed close relatives and shared the same family. red pandas have long been considered and are still classified as a type of procyonid (sp?), thats the raccon family. personally i have never been convinced that red pandas share a close relationship with raccons (which are restricted to the new world) nor have i ever been able to get my head around the giant panda not actually being a bear. so i was very logical and welsome news when i read new research that confirmed not only that the giant panda is a bear, but that the red panda is also shares a common ancestor with the bears, and may indeed be a ancestral bear of sorts. so interestingly we went from the two "pandas" being in their own family which was akin to the racccons to them being related in name only to being relatives once again, but this time in the bear family! what is actually accepted of the red pandas position i am not sure but the debate is over relating to the ginat pandas position. it is now accepted by all as a true bear. now if only we could get people to revert to the actuallymore accurate name of "panda bear" which was drilled out of us back in the 80's.....
Thanks Patrick I believe the show I was watching made some reference to the classification being up in the air at some point (I said it was a vague memory, eh..?)
red panda classification seems to change every time I turn around, however like Patrick said the most recent thing I'm hearing points to red pandas being an evolutionary offshoot from bears shortly after split between bears and procyonids.
@NZ Jeremy: you've started a good thread, because for years there was intense debate amongst scientists on the classification of giant pandas and red pandas. Patrick has summed it up perfectly, and for at least a decade now giant pandas have been one of 8 bear species: giant panda, brown, black, polar, spectacled, sun, sloth, and asian black. There are naturally subspecies of those 8 bears (grizzly, kodiak, etc) but those are the base models for the bear family.
I think giant pandas are still considered to be quite distant from the other bears but certainly a member of the bear family. I think their closest relatives are the Andean Bears. One other thing I heard recently, are some of the brown bear subspecies been considered, or given species status? I think it was the Himalayan Blue or Himalayan Red.
@Chris: there are so many subspecies of brown bear that it becomes confusing, especially when their territories can occaionally overlap. The Himalayan Blue and Red, the Syrian, the Alaskan brown, the inland grizzly, the Kodiak, etc. I am from Canada and am forever reading about brown bears in the local paper. One interesting fact is that some Kodiak bears on Kodiak Island in Alaska have been larger than even polar bears. The lack of enemies (minor culling from hunters) and the massive proliferation of salmon cause those particular bears to gain enormous weights that rival the world's largest bears.
