Newest fossil giant panda

The newest fossil giant panda to be scientifically documented is Kretzoiarctos beatrix, which was formally described and named by scientists in 2011. It lived more than 11 million years ago, during the mid to late Miocene epoch, in what is now the Zaragoza region of Spain. Based upon its dentition and dental structure (the only remains of it found so far are teeth), it is thought to have been a small herbivorous species that may have looked like the modern-day giant panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca and fed upon very hard plants.

This species was originally placed in the existing fossil panda genus Agriarctos, but a year later its discoverers decided that it was sufficiently distinct from other species in that genus to warrant being housed separately, in a genus of its own. So it was reassigned to the newly created genus Kretzoiarctos.