SUBSCRIBE to Next Media Animation: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=NMAWorldEdition<br /><br />The oldest known ancestor of the giant panda lived in Spain, paleontologists say, after two fossil sets of jaws and teeth of a species in the panda lineage scientists are calling the Kretzoiarctos beatrix were found in northeast Spain.<br /><br />Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NMAtv<br />Webpage: http://www.nma.tv/<br />Twitter @nmatv: https://twitter.com/#!/nmatv<br />Tumblr: http://nmatv.tumblr.com/<br /><br />The fossils, described in the journal PLOS ONE, are from two adult animals and are 11.5 million to 12.5 million years old, according to lead study author Juan Abella, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Spain. The oldest giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) fossils found in China are significantly younger, an 8.2 million years old.<br /><br />The genus is called Kretzoiarctos, which means "bears of Kretzoi" and was named after a paleontologist who had discovered other extinct panda species, Miklos Kretzoi. The species is named "beatrix," after colleague of the researchers, Beatriz Azanza. Kretzoiarctos beatrix weighed at most 160 pounds.
