Europe Once Had Its Own Giant Pandas, And They Didn't Eat Bamboo

Giant pandas were not only native to China, but also to other parts of the world.

The panda teeth that were found in northwestern Bulgaria suggest that the bears used to eat a lot of softer plants than they do today.

The ancestors of today's giant pandas are not the same as the ancestors of the Bulgaria gnashers who lived 6 million years ago.

Today's giant pandas are about the same size as this species, according to experts.

The panda is thought to have lived in a swampy forest and eaten vegetation.

The cusps of its teeth do not seem strong enough to destroy bamboo.

The idea that giant panda evolved from a bear to a panda to fill an ecological niche millions of years ago is a good one.

According to a paleontologist from Bulgaria's National Museum of Natural History, the competition between giant pandas and other bears may explain their closer food specialization to vegetable food.

Giant pandas are said to be fossils because they have not changed much throughout their evolution. Their family tree is not a straight shoot.

There are so many different branches that it's difficult to combine them.

Giant pandas are thought to have evolved from bears. It is1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556

The most likely relative of giant pandas lived in China. The teeth of a panda-like creature were found in Hungary and are 2 million years old.

It's possible that an older fossil will be found one day, but based on these dates, it's likely that pandas originated in Europe.

One of Europe's last panda species could have been named after Ivan Nikolov, the first to catalog the teeth in the 70s.

According to Spassov, giant pandas are a very special group of bears.

The evolution of the fossil panda was related to the humid, wooded habitats in which it was found. The existence of the last European panda is thought to have been affected by climate change.

The panda's background is not black and white.

The study was published in a peer reviewed journal.