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China once home to pygmy panda

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From Times Staff and Wire Reports

About 2 million years ago, in lowland tropical forests of what is now China, there lived an ancestor of the giant panda that was very similar to the modern-day bear but was only about half its size, scientists said Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers from the University of Iowa described a complete skull -- about 60% of the size of the modern panda -- and teeth of a pygmy-sized panda. The extinct bear, Ailuropoda microta, is the earliest known member of the panda lineage.

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