A group of paleontologists from the Catalan Institute of Paleontology, the National Museum of Natural Sciences and the Complutense University of Madrid, led by researcher Juan Abella, has discovered that the origin of the panda bear could be found in Spain, and not in China as has always been thought.

Fossils dating back between 11 and 12 million years have been found in excavations carried out in Zaragoza and Barcelona, which represents a transformation of the known evolutionary chain of this species, since until then the oldest ancestor was seven and eight years old. It is a jaw and a tooth located at the Abocador de Can Mata site, in Pierola (Barcelona), which are added to the other remains discovered in Nombrevilla (Zaragoza). This research has been published in the journal PLoS ONE.

A new species that they have named “Kretzoiarctos” in honor of Miklós Kretzoi, a paleontologist who led the excavations in Hungary where the first indications were found that placed the origin of this species in Europe.