What Red Pandas, giant pandas and lemurs have in common

A Red Panda and his favorite food. Photo: F27707 / Pixabay

A new study from North Carolina State University (NCSU), the Smithsonian and Duke University reveals a surprising similarity between Red Pandas, giant pandas and lemurs.

MAIN DISH: BAMBOO

Although these species evolved separately over the millions of years of evolution, they share a total of 48 gut microbes.

eulemur rubriventer — Lemurs live also almost exclusively on bamboo. Photo: Paul Albertella from Manchester, UK (Red-bellied lemur Uploaded by Snowmanradio) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

One reason for this might be that all three species feed almost exclusively on bamboo only.

Read more

Some highlights of the study at NCSU’s website.

The full version is available at Springer.