‘Amazing development’: fossil finds show how panda’s false thumb evolved

Ancient fossils found in China have helped researchers get a grip on the enduring thriller of the panda’s false thumb.

Modern big pandas sport a thumb-like sixth digit on their wrists, which scientists consider was pivotal of their transition from omnivores to bamboo-munching vegetarians.

While the stubby additional digit, often called a radial sesamoid, isn’t as versatile because the human thumb, it allows pandas to carry and crush bamboo stems into bite-size items and gas their formidable urge for food.

The panda’s false thumb has been recognized for greater than 100 years, however a near-total lack of fossil proof has left researchers puzzled as to when the digit evolved.

Writing in Scientific Reports, Xiaoming Wang, curator of vertebrate palaeontology on the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, sheds mild on the thriller. New fossils of an historical panda found close to town of Zhaotong within the northern Yunnan province of China not solely sport the false thumb, however recommend it was as soon as bigger than these seen in pandas at this time.

The fossils, that are 6 to 7 million years outdated, belong to an extinct panda relative known as Ailurarctos and are believed to be the oldest recognized proof for the bizarre digit.

Denise Su, an affiliate professor at Arizona State University and co-leader on the mission that recovered the panda specimens, stated trendy pandas have had sufficient time to evolve longer false thumbs, however the evolutionary strain of needing to stroll on their palms in addition to deal with bamboo had apparently saved them quick and robust.

In evolving from a carnivorous ancestor to a bamboo-feeder, the panda needed to overcome loads of obstacles, Wang added. “An opposable ‘thumb’ from a wrist bone may be the most amazing development against these hurdles,” he stated.

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The researchers discovered an Ailurarctos arm bone in 2010 and found enamel and the false thumb in 2015. Until now, the oldest-known proof of the thumb-like construction got here from fossils of recent panda species dated to about 100,000 years in the past. As effectively as being shorter than its ancestor’s, the fashionable panda’s false thumb has a hook on the top, which the authors consider may assist it to understand bamboo.

While the panda’s food plan is 99% vegetarian, they sometimes eat small animals. To meet their dietary wants, pandas eat for as much as 14 hours a day, consuming almost 40kg of bamboo a day as adults.

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