The first skull of the earliest giant panda

Changzhu Jin; Russell L. Ciochon; Wei Dong; Robert M. Hunt; Jinyi Liu; Marc Jaeger; Qizhi Zhu

doi:10.1073/pnas.0704198104

New Research In

Communicated by Richard G. Klein, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, May 8, 2007 (received for review January 10, 2007)

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Fig. 1.
Comparison of the skull and upper dentition of fossil and extant giant pandas. (A and D) Ailuropoda microta (IVPP V14564), late Pliocene, Jinyin cave, China. (B and E) A. baconi, Pleistocene, Liujiang, Guangxi, China. (C and F) Living A. melanoleuca, China.
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Fig. 2.
Geographic distribution and craniodental dimensions of fossil and living giant pandas. (A) Localities yielding A. microta and A. wulingshanensis in southeastern China relative to the geographic range of the giant panda in the Pleistocene. Present-day range of the giant panda is from Loucks et al. (28). The southernmost range of the giant panda is defined by fossil discoveries at Mogok, Burma (5), Chaiyaphum, Thailand (14), and Lang Trang, Vietnam (29). (B) Condylobasal length of skull (in millimeters) for the living giant panda A. melanoleuca relative to the Jinyin cave A. microta skull (IVPP V14564). Range, 1 SD and the mean are indicated; sample size noted within each SD bar. The four upper samples represent subpopulations of the living giant panda (11); the lower three samples are 18 skulls of A. melanoleuca measured in North American museums (22). These 18 skulls are then separated by sex to demonstrate dimorphism. No skulls of A. wulingshanensis are known, and the few skulls of A. baconi fall in the upper part of the range of the living giant panda. (C and D) Distribution of dental measurements (in millimeters) for the four species of giant panda Ailuropoda (late Pliocene–Recent); M₁, M₂ lengths (C); P⁴, M¹, M² lengths (D). Sample size is indicated within each range bar.
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Fig. 3.
Stereoimages of the skull of Ailuropoda microta, Jinyin cave, China. Teeth, skull, and basicranial anatomy of IVPP V14564 show detail clearly comparable with these features in the living giant panda, indicating the appearance of these specialized traits in the lineage by the late Pliocene (≈2 to 2.4 Myr). bs, basisphenoid; bo, basioccipital; eam, osseous external auditory meatus; e1, anterior caudal entotympanic; e2, posterior caudal entotympanic; ic, entrance of internal carotid artery; m, mastoid; pg, postglenoid process of squamosal; pp, paroccipital process; t, ectotympanic; C, canine, P^2–4, premolars; M^1–2, molars.
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Fig. 4.
CT scanned image and 3D reconstruction of A. microta skull, Jinyin cave, China. (A–D) Transverse CT sections through the dorsal paranasal sinuses (dps), cerebral fossa (crf), cerebellar fossa (cbf), and olfactory fossa (of). (E) Note greatly inflated dorsal paranasal sinus complex. m, maxillary sinus; nc, nasal cavity; s, sphenoid sinus; te, tentorium.
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Fig. 5.
Late Cenozoic temporal distribution of species of the giant panda Ailuropoda in southeastern Asia (9, 14, 16, 17, 21, 30–32); time scale (33).

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Table 1.

Dimensions (in millimeters) of the upper teeth of species of the giant panda Ailuropoda and the Lufeng panda Ailurarctos

Tooth	Recent*	Pleistocene ^†	Late Pliocene–Early Pleistocene ^‡		Late Miocene ^§
Tooth	Ailuropoda melanoleuca	Ailuropoda baconi	Ailuropoda wulingshanensis	Ailuropoda microta ^‖	Ailurarctos lufengensis
C¹
L	14.8–20.4	18.3–23.0 (3) ^¶
W	10.3–13.9	14.4–16.0 (3)
P¹
L	3.2–4.5	6.3
W	2.5–4.6	5.2
P²
L	12.1–14.2	12.3–15.0 (17)	8.6–12.3 (13)	9.0–11.0 (4)	8.6
W	6.1–7.4	6.9–8.5 (17)	4.9–7.0 (13)	4.8–6.4 (4)	5.2
P³
L	18.2–21.0	19.4–24.0 (42)	14.5–21.4 (23)	14.3–16.5 (6)	12.2
W	10.8–12.8	11.0–15.0 (42)	9.6–14.0 (23)	8.0–10.5 (6)	7.4
P⁴
L	22.6–26.7	24.8–30.5 (50)	20.8–25.9 (34)	19.4–22.5 (19)	15.5
W	16.8–20.1	16.5–21.8 (50)	14.1–18.6 (34)	12.0–16.0 (19)	11.3
M¹
L	22.4–26.2	25.1–29.0 (44)	20.0–26.3 (35)	17.7–23.0 (23)	17.3
W	25.1–29.6	26.0–31.5 (44)	21.8–27.5 (35)	16.5–23.2 (23)	≈15.3–15.6 (2)
M²
L	30.4–36.5	31.0–40.5 (41)	24.2–32.5 (36)	20.0–25.0 (25)	17.6–19.8 (2)
W	24.0–28.2	23.7–30.5 (41)	19.0–26.0 (36)	16.0–20.0 (25)	14.2–14.9 (2)
P³–M²
L	93.5–106.8	106.0–110.0	89.0–89.4	74.5	—

L, length; W, width.
↵*Data from Colbert and Hooijer (3), n = 19 for each dental measurement.
↵ ^†Data from Pei (4): data column includes the large skull from Mogok, Burma, described by Woodward (5).
↵ ^‡Data from Wei Dong, personal communication.
↵ ^§Data from Qiu and Qi (8).
↵ ^¶Numbers in parentheses represent sample size (n).
↵ ^‖Does not include dental measurements from IVPP V14564 (Jinyin skull).

Data supplements

Jin et al. 10.1073/pnas.0704198104.

Supporting Information
Files in this Data Supplement:
SI Table 2
SI Table 3
SI Figure 6
SI Movie 1

SI Figure 6
Fig. 6. Cladogram illustrating the position of Ailuropoda melanoleuca within the Carnivora as determined from source trees derived from morphological (n = 2, length = 287, CI = 0.662, RI = 0.734; RC = 0.486); molecular (n = 6, length = 241, CI = 0.718, RI = 0.764; RC = 0.548); and total evidence (n = 4, length = 74, CI = 0.757, RI = 0.861; RC = 0.651) data. Figure adapted after and data from Bininda-Emonds ORP (2004) in Giant Pandas, Biology and Conservation, eds Lindburg D, Baragona K (Univ of California Press, Berkeley, CA), pp 11-35.

SI Movie 1
Movie 1. Virtual rotation of endocranial space of the skull of Ailuropoda microta (IVPP V14564). The dorsal paranasal sinuses (dps) are in green, the cerebral fossa (crf) is in purple, the cerebellar fossa (cbf) is in pink, and the olfactory fossa (of) is in orange.