Find out the ancient giant panda DNA

Chinese scientists have discovered a giant fossil that lived about 22,000 years ago. Before excavating, assembling and analyzing mitochondrial DNA, biologists had absolutely no knowledge of the existence of this panda.

The fossil was found at Cizhutuo cave in Guangxi province (China), where there is no panda living - according to the report published on June 18 by Current Biology at the Academy. Chinese science.

An ancient giant panda fossil piece is found in China.(Photo: Yingqi Zhang and Yong Xu).

The finding is indeed a pleasant surprise, because the scientific community has not had much awareness of the history of nearly 2,500 giant pandas that exist in the world before. According to the explanation, about 20 million years ago, the modern giant panda population was isolated from all other bears, making it impossible for scientists to know much about their lineage.

The analytical results show that this fossil is of an organism - belonging to a species isolated from modern pandas, only about 183,000 years ago, much closer to the 20 million-year milestone. Before identifying that time period (and the fact that before fossils from a particular species can be confirmed), scientists have gathered the remaining pieces of mitochondrial DNA after millennia. in a subtropical cave (mitochondrial DNA differs from DNA found in the cell nucleus, but can also provide similar information about the ancestors of an organism).

Specifically, the research team put together 148,329 pieces of DNA together as puzzle puzzle pieces, while using the giant panda's mitochondrial DNA as a guide. The results showed that all DNA fragments came from the same individual, and the team was able to use them to parse the word to determine the ancestor of the animal.

DNA may also have dozens of mutations that lead to changes in animal growth, scientists said. At the same time, they also pointed out that these mutations are to adapt to cool subtropical climate conditions in the Ice Age of 22,000 years ago.