2729: The Real Panda Jun 10, 2024

The word ‘panda’ originally comes from a Nepalese word, which is interesting on its own since the historical range of pandas ends well south of Nepal. This is because the original term ‘panda’ did not denote the giant panda, but rather the totally unrelated red panda. The term has also been applied historically to the bearcat, similarly to the Chinese 大貓熊 (dàmāoxióng) “giant bear cat” or just 熊貓 (xióngmāo) “bear cat”. This is why the term is “giant panda”—giant compared to a red panda—but most people will simply say “panda”, assuming the red panda was named later, when it was described using the term ‘panda’ some four decades earlier.