Talk:Red panda/Taxonomy

Ursidae or Procyonidae?
Wilson and Reeder put the Red Panda in Ursidae. see here and here for their reasons. Dsmdgold 22:48, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

At the wikipedia, this page, and Procyonidae page has the red panda in ursidae. The ursidae page and the main mammal page places them in Procyonidae. It seems they are disowned by both pages. I'm going to have a go a bit of a sort out. dont change here without changing the other pages. Zeimusu


 * Curtis & Barnes in Invitation to Biology (Panamericana, 2003 edition) talks about the panda's question. According to these authors, latest studies on morphology, DNA-DNA Hybridation, protein comparison (by electrophoresis), inmunology and cromosome bands shows that giant panda is in fact a bear, but red panda isn't. This animal is more (but far) related to raccoons than bears. I think that the best idea is to place the red panda in its own family.

--Menah the Great 17:39, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

It's very confusing. Most sources I've seen groups it with raccoons, but a fair few group it in it's own family. I've only seen it grouped with bears once before, in a rather unreliable source. Dora Nichov 14:25, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Current molecular-systematics places the Red Panda into its own family, Ailuridae. As you can see from the above cladigram, it's in its own clade. It's not an Ursidae or in the raccoon family. There are at least two separate and distinct subspecies, and possibly three: two in East Asia and Southeast Asia and one in India. The western Cat Bear or Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens fulgens) and the somewhat larger "Styans Cat Bear" (Ailurus fulgens styani). Valich 03:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I agree with Dora Nichov, that it's not relible source. I actually have two books stated about were the red panda should go. One said it's a type of long tail bear, while the other one said it;s a raccon, but may belong to a new family with the panda bear. I actually think the red panda should be a bear. User:4444hhhh

Still, most places I've seen place it with raccoons. Dora Nichov 14:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to close the loop. Someone seems to have straightened out the taxonomy trees in Wikipedia. I followed it down from Animalia, and it is not currently placed with either bears or racoons. It has its own family Ailuridae in parallel with Procyonidae (which contains racoons). This makes it "more closely related to racoons than bears" (which is what I have ben telling people for a while, but it is not in the same family. This understanding matches the IUCN format used in the taxoboxes and pulled by template from IUCN. And, it matches information I found at http://www.itis.gov/ (Integrated Taxonomic Information System) and http://www.eol.org/pages/327984 (Encyclopedia of Life - Red Panda). From some broken links and references in the article, I surmise that at least some of the genetic work involved in making this change was done at University of Georgia, but I cannot find the articles anywhere. Donlammers (talk) 14:40, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Ailuropodidae or Ailuridae
I found on this website: q It said that red panda's are Ailuropodidae and the RP page says Ailuridae. I'm not sure which is correct. Can somebody help me out here. Alexq4 (talk) 04:24, 24 May 2008 (UTC)


 * That Web site is incorrect. It's likely just a typo.  Red Pandas are in Ailuridae.  Ailuropodidae was once given as a family for Giant Pandas (not Red, and actually they're not that closely related), but this is pretty out of date now.  I'm guessing the author of the above Web site simply mixed the two up.  Giant Pandas are considered members of the family Ursidae. --JayHenry (talk) 04:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Which Order does Red Panda belong to?
I am curious why in the first line of the article the Red Panda is referred to as MOSTLY herbivorous, yet under the scientific classification it is in the order Carnivore? Since when does herbivorous mean carnivore? In actuality, it should be in the Order Omnivore since it eats animal as well as plants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.196.173.248 (talk) 15:57, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Common misconception. Carnivora with an "a" instead of an "e" refers to carnivorans, not carnivores.  Bears also fall into this order, and they are largely omnivorous.  Dogs and raccoons fall into it, too.  I don't know about dogs, but I know raccoons are omnivores.  In fact, in school, raccoons and humans were the two examples they taught me of omnivores.
 * Carnivorans are grouped together not by their diet, but by their dental structure. All of them have similar teeth.  Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 16:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
 * An "Order" is a broad group of related animals - see Biological classification for details. Order Carnivora is one such group (within the Class Mammalia), and is so called because most of its members are carnivorous.  However, the group is defined by how closely related the members are, not what they eat, so animals can still be part of this group despite being omnivorous or even mainly herbivorous, while some carnivorous mammals (e.g. whales and dolphins) and all carnivorous non-mammals (sharks, crocodiles, birds of prey, scorpions, carnivorous plants, etc) are not. Wardog (talk) 11:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)