At the beginning of the last century, there was a new advance in the exploration of the ice giant panda, and surprisingly the fossil was found not in China, but in neighboring Myanmar.
Prehistoric giant panda fossils
This is an unprecedented prehistoric giant panda fossil, its morphological characteristics are very similar to modern giant pandas, but larger and thicker. Since then, many areas in southern China have unearthed the fossils of this giant panda, and more and more fossils show that this prehistoric giant panda is far stronger than today's giant panda, and its adult individual body length is even more than two meters, which is 1/3 larger than the modern giant panda, which is undoubtedly the largest giant panda in history, which is the giant panda bus subspecies.
Bus subspecies giant panda fossils
In the 1960s, more new evidence appeared in the Qinling Mountains, the watershed of the north-south climate of the Chinese mainland, and more than 40 animal fossils were unearthed in the same formation as the fossils of the giant panda bus subspecies, and almost all of them were typical southern animals, so that an ancient China of 800,000 years ago gradually became clear, that is, the golden age of prehistoric giant pandas, and the small giant pandas that had undergone tests on the southern slopes of the Qinling Mountains had transformed into the largest giant pandas in history with thick bodies and strong limbs.
The largest giant panda in history
Under the influence of the fourth season of the Ice Age, the expansion and contraction of species in ancient Chinese continents are always consistent with the advance and retreat of the Ice Age, and the small species of giant pandas that have begun to switch to vegetarianism 1.6 million years ago have gradually increased in size, and when the Ice Age subsides 800,000 years ago, the temperature warms up, and the originally limited number of them finally ushers in the critical moment of the population breaking the circle, and once their children reach adulthood, they must leave their families to find their own territory. Then at this time, the panda will go very far, which may be the survival strategy that the ancestors of the giant panda have evolved earlier, and only in this way will they not stick to the ground and wait for the resources to be exhausted.
Himalayas
800,000 years ago, the Himalayas have been elevated to more than 4,000 meters above sea level, the fourth season of the Great Ice Age, which began 2 million years ago, usually in a 100,000-year cycle, cold and warm cycles repeatedly, but the duration of the warm period 800,000 years ago reached an unprecedented 250,000 years, and many species that were tormented by the cold are seizing the opportunity to expand their populations.
Different from the giant panda living in the alpine mountains today, the bus subspecies of that year were more living in the warm temperate zone, and even subtropical, as a former carnivore, after millions of years of evolution, the giant panda at this time has all the conditions to feed on bamboo, compared with the intricate history of human evolution, the evolution path of the giant panda is particularly clear, from the excavation of many fossils, the giant panda 800,000 years ago has actually been very similar to today's giant panda, but it is larger and stronger. Especially their teeth, all the characteristics associated with eating bamboo have been very similar to modern giant pandas, so they should have become completely dependent on bamboo to feed on them like contemporary giant pandas, and due to the repeated invasions of the Ice Age, the species density north of the Qinling Mountains is relatively low, which just created conditions for the spread of the bus subspecies.
The living environment of giant pandas
800,000 years ago, a long warm period of 250,000 years to create an unprecedented opportunity for the expansion of bamboo, the giant panda also chased the footsteps of its own, all the way north to south to east continuous spread, and finally became one of the most advantageous species in the ancient Chinese mainland, the Yellow River Basin has, the Pearl River Basin has, but also beyond the national border, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam have, that is the largest population in the evolutionary history of giant pandas, the most widely distributed period.
Migratory giant pandas
500,000 years ago, when the cold ice age came to earth again, the long warm period finally came to an abrupt end, in the snowflakes of the Qinling Mountains, many species fell into the test of life and death in the cold, just at this time, the bus subspecies giant panda that has reached its peak even crossed the Qiongzhou Strait and arrived at Hainan Island. But 180,000 years ago, with the latest ice age to reach its peak today. The declining bus subspecies of the giant panda was finally replaced by the modern giant panda. (Please watch the next episode: Panda Story Four: The Ancients Lost Their Cute Playmates, Where Are the Pandas Who Entered Human History?) 》）