52 giant panda fossils found in Asia's longest cave

GUIYANG -- A total of 52 giant panda fossils have been discovered in Shuanghe Cave in Suiyang county, Southwest China's Guizhou province, making Shuanghe the site with the largest number of such fossils in the world, according to a Friday press conference on the results of the 24th International Cave Science Expedition.

The 52 fossils include six that were uncovered during a recent scientific expedition. "Many mammalian fossils have been discovered in Shuanghe Cave, among which the giant panda fossils are the most prominent," said Wang Deyuan, an associate research fellow at the Guizhou Academy of Sciences' Institute of Mountain Resources.

The fossils are evidence that giant pandas lived in Guizhou from 100,000 years ago to a few hundred years ago, forming a relatively continuous chronological sequence. Teeth analysis suggests most of these giant pandas were subadult or new adult individuals.

Numerous limb bones and skulls found at the site have also enabled researchers to study the evolutionary changes in the species' body weight. Their study found that giant pandas reached their maximum body weight during the Middle Pleistocene, after which it began to decrease until it developed into its present level.

With a total length of 439.7 kilometers, Shuanghe Cave is the longest cave in Asia and the third-longest in the world. It has been the site of 24 international joint scientific expeditions since the late 1980s.