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  • Category: Culture

Recently, giant panda fossils were discovered in a limestone cave in Chenggu County, Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province. According to on-site collection, the skull fossil is more than 90% complete, and the other bone fossils are 70% complete, which is very rare.

According to preliminary judgment by experts, the age of the fossils is from the late Middle Pleistocene to the Late Pleistocene of the Quaternary Period, 200,000 to 10,000 years ago. This is the first time that a relatively well-preserved giant panda fossil has been found in Shaanxi Province, which has high scientific research and popular science value.

The location where the giant panda fossils were found is in a karst cave in Chenggu County, Hanzhong City, about 180 meters deep. The giant panda fossils are on a limestone platform deep in the cave. The surrounding environment is dark and humid, and water keeps dripping from the top of the cave where the fossils are preserved, and there is also an underground river below. Experts introduced that "the giant panda fossil skeleton is cemented to the limestone platform, exposed on the rock surface, and there are secondary calcium carbonate deposits on the fossil surface, covering an area of ​​about 1 square meter. The humerus, femur, spine, ribs and other giant panda posterior head bones are clearly visible, ranging from 3 to 20 cm in length."

Combining the fossil skull morphology, tooth structure characteristics and sagittal crest development degree, experts preliminarily judged that the giant panda fossil belongs to an adult giant panda, possibly a female individual, 30.2 cm long, 17.3 cm wide and 21.2 cm high. The degree of preservation is relatively rare in China.

Hu Songmei, member of the Shaanxi Provincial Paleontological Fossil Expert Committee and researcher: The previous discoveries were all sporadic, that is, a single tooth or a single bone. This giant panda fossil is very complete, with a skull, metatarsals, and vertebrae. It is currently the first giant panda fossil with a relatively high degree of completeness in Shaanxi. It is very meaningful for studying the evolutionary history of giant pandas.

It is understood that after the collection of giant panda skeletal fossil specimens is completed, the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Natural Resources will organize experts to further protect and study the fossils through dating and DNA testing.