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Battle over when giant pandas started their bamboo diet heats up

Switch to such restricted fare probably happened thousands of years ago, not millions, as some research has suggested.
  1. Emiliano Rodríguez Mega
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Giant pandas haven’t been on their bamboo diet for nearly as long as scientists thought. Research suggested that the bears made the switch to bamboo millions of years ago, but a study1 now challenges this idea, proposing that the iconic creature went on its restrictive diet much more recently.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00301-y

References

  1. Han, H. et al. Curr. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.12.051 (2019).

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  2. Zhao, H., Yang, J.-R., Xu, H. & Zhang, J. Mol. Biol. Evol. 27, 2669–2673 (2010).

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  3. Jin, C. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104, 10932–10937 (2007).

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