වසර 10,000ක් පැරණි පැන්ඩා ෆොසිලයක් හමුවෙයි

Giant panda fossils with complete skeletal structure unearthed in Shaanxi

One fossilized giant panda dating back to over 10,000 years ago was recently found in a limestone cave in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

The cave site is located in Chenggu County within the city of Hanzhong. Researchers found some giant panda remains on a limestone platform 180 meters deep within the cave, covering an area of about one square meter.

The panda's skull is over 90 percent intact, and other skeletal remains are 70 percent complete. It is rare to discover such well-preserved giant panda fossil anywhere, researchers said.

By considering the structures of fossilized skull, the teeth and sagittal crest, experts have initially classified this fossil as belonging to an adult giant panda, likely a female.

With a detailed examination of the fossil's preservation conditions and level of petrification, the fossil was dated to the late Middle Pleistocene to late Pleistocene, spanning from approximately 200,000 to 10,000 years ago. This finding has high value for scientific research and scientific popularization of understanding the survival and evolutionary process of giant pandas in the Qinling and Daba mountains.

"The giant panda fossils discovered before were often heavily fragmented, consisting of a single tooth or a single bone. This time, the fossil is highly complete, a nearly complete skull, along with intact metatarsal bones and vertebrae. We will try to piece together a very complete fossil skeleton when we go back. This is the first complete fossil in Shaanxi and probably the only one in the country," said Hu Songmei, a member of the Shaanxi Provincial Paleontological Fossil Expert Committee, who conducted a preliminary identification of the bones at the site.

So far, the collection of scattered fossil specimens has been basically finished, with a total of 33 specimens gathered. Next, the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Natural Resources will organize experts to carry out specimen restoration and related scientific research.

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