Red Panda - Phylogenetics - Evolutionary History

Evolutionary History

The red panda is considered a living fossil and only distantly related to the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Their common ancestor can be traced back to the Early Tertiary period tens of millions of years ago, with a wide distribution across Eurasia. Fossils of the red panda Parailurus anglicus have been unearthed from China in the east to Britain in the west.

In 1977, a single tooth of the extinct panda Parailurus was discovered in the Pliocene Ringold Formation of Washington. This first North American record is almost identical to European specimens and indicates the immigration of this species from Asia. In 2004, a tooth from a red panda species never before recorded in North America was discovered at the Gray Fossil Site in Tennessee. The tooth dates from 4.5–7 million years ago. This species, described as Pristinailurus bristoli, indicates a second, more primitive ailurine lineage inhabited North America during the Miocene. Cladistic analysis suggests Parailurus and Ailurus are sister taxa. Additional fossils of Pristinailurus bristoli were discovered at the Gray Fossil site in 2010 and in 2012. The frequency with which panda fossils are being found at Gray Fossil Site suggests the species played a large role in the overall ecosystem of the area.

The discovery in Spain of the postcranial remains of Simocyon batalleri, a Miocene relative to the red panda, supports a sister-group relationship between red pandas and giant pandas. The discovery suggests the red panda's "false thumb" was an adaptation to arboreal locomotion — independent of the giant panda's adaptation to manipulate bamboo — one of the most dramatic cases of convergent evolution among vertebrates.