In the evolutionary history of animals and in the competition of survival, the giant panda has already been one of the winners.
Analysis over already found fossils indicates that, in late Miocene that is about 8 million years ago, at the edge of the tropical humid forest around the Lufeng Area in Yunan Province of China, there had lived the ancestor of giant panda – The primal panda (Ailuaractos Lufengensis), which is the earliest panda that evolved from arctoid with a carnassial food habit. The figure of the primal panda is like a fat fox. The lineage evolved from the primal panda is Agriarcros Goaci, which had been inhabiting in the humid forest around Hungary and France in Europe. The primal panda became extinct in late Miocene period. While the main lineage of primal giant panda continued their evolution in central and south China, one branch of which appeared in early Pleistocene about 3 million years ago, was half the size of the giant panda that we see today, mostly like a fat dog. The fossil of this branch is named as Ailuropoda Micrta. From the fossil teeth of the Ailuropoda micrta, it is speculated to have evolved into a species of omnivorous animals which partially feed on bamboos. Two million years later, these smaller-figured giant pandas started to extend their living areas to the sub-tropical humid forest, which gradually covered the former living areas of primal pandas around Yunnan, Guangxi and Sichuan. Later on, the giant panda has further adapted to the life in subtropical bamboo woods and their bodies grew bigger and bigger. In age of mid and late Pleistocene, which is between the 500 thousand to 700 thousand years ago, was the flourishing age of giant pandas. The figure of the fossil Ailuropoda Milanoleuca Wulishansis is only 1/8 smaller than that of present giant panda. However, till the late Pleistocene Period, the figure of the fossil Ailuropoda Milanoleuea Daconi, which had been living on bamboo, became about 1/8 bigger than that of present giant panda.
During the entire Pleistocene, the distribution of fossils of giant panda subspecies is rather wide. The distribution almost covers the east and south of China, to the north including the Zhou Koudian site and to the south including Taiwan Island as well as Burma, Vietnam and North Thailand. In those remote ages, the giant panda had been living with the Smilodon, the Stegodon Sinensis Owen, the Peking Man and the Australopithecus, which formed the typical Pleistocene – Giant Panda – Stegodon Sinensis Owen fossil cluster. During the mid and late Pleistocene Period, great environment changes had occurred as large areas of glacier appeared in the Qingling Mountains and those mountains to the south. After the Quarternary Glacier, which is about 18 thousand years ago, the Giant Panda – Stegodon Sinensis Owen fauna declined, most of the animals became extinct, and only those innumerable fossils indicated their existence. The giant panda disappeared in the north, and the distribution of giant panda in the south also shrank. Giant Pandas thereafter stepped into the declining stage of evolutionary history.
In the past ten thousand years, the development of human civilization continuous threatened the panda’s natual habitat in a degree that the giant panda had to withdraw into the high mountains and deep valleys on the east edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
The miraculous survival of giant panda through the tremendous changes in the history of nature can be attributed to its withdraw from competition.
However, giant pandas are now in a very dangerous situation. From the 1950s utill now, four-fifths of their habitat has disappeared, and only a little more than 10,000 square kilometers in more than 30 counties have remained. The population of giant pandas has decreased to approximately 1500, which is then divided into about 20 isolated groups. Because of this, there may be inbreeding, and a loss of genetic diversity of the species, thereby extinct one group by another. In addition, giant panda only eats bamboos; when the cyclical blossoming of bamboos happens, bamboos wither and pandas may die of starvation or sickness. In the 1970s and 1980s, bamboos of the Mingshan Mountain and Qionglai Mountain once have a large-scale blossoming, which caused a sharp decrease of panda population. There are a little more than 1000 wild giant panda, most of them live in montains around Sichuan provincd of China.
