Pandas of the species Agriarctos nikolovi ate softer plants than their modern relatives.
A pair of fossilized panda teeth have been found in Bulgaria that belong to the last panda in Europe, which lived six million years ago. This is reported by Live Science.
Examination of the teeth showed that these panda tusks were unlike those of other panda species previously found in Europe. Most species of European pandas had smaller teeth than modern giant pandas, meaning they were probably smaller than their modern relatives.
However, pandas of the discovered species Agriarctos nikolovi had larger teeth, which means they were the same or slightly larger in size than modern giant pandas.
Nikolai Spasov, a paleontologist at the Bulgarian National Museum of Natural History, added that Agriarctos nikolovi lived in a completely different habitat. In particular, the diet of pandas can be more diverse than modern animals, they eat a variety of soft plants, and not just one type of plant, like modern pandas – bamboo.
It was previously reported that as part of a recent study in Spain, archaeologists found the remains of facial bones that are 1.4 million years old.
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Source: korrespondent
