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Source: People's Republic of China in Russian – People's Republic of China in Russian –
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Source: People's Republic of China – State Council News
Guiyang, October 25 (Xinhua) — A total of 52 giant panda fossils have been discovered in Shuanghe Cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, making it the site with the largest number of such fossils in the world. This was announced on Friday at a press conference to announce the results of the 24th International Cave Expedition.
Six of the 52 aforementioned fossils were discovered during a recent scientific expedition. "Shuanghe Cave has yielded numerous mammal fossils, with giant panda fossils being the most distinctive," said Wang Deyuan, a junior researcher at the Institute of Mineral Resources, Guizhou Provincial Academy of Sciences.
The excavated fossils provide evidence that giant pandas inhabited the Guizhou region from 100,000 years ago to several centuries ago, thus forming a relatively continuous chronological sequence. Dental analysis indicates that most of these giant pandas were in the subadult or early adult stage of development.
Numerous limb and skull bones found at the excavation site also allowed researchers to study the evolutionary changes in body weight in this species. The study showed that giant pandas reached their maximum weight in the Middle Pleistocene, after which their weight began to decline until reaching its present-day level.
The total length of Shuanghe Cave is 439.7 km, making it the longest cave in Asia and the third longest in the world. Since the late 1980s, 24 international joint scientific expeditions have been conducted here. -0-
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