Barbara Farraghen, age 14, of Youngstown, Ohio, for her question:
ARE THE PANDA BEAR AND THE KOALA BEAR RELATED?
No, the panda and the Koala are not related to each other and neither of them is remotely related to the bears. No doubt they were called bears by people who had never seen them before. In these circumstances, folks tend to use the name of an animal they already know, especially when it seems to fit. And both the panda and the koala look somewhat like shaggy bears
Pandas, cuddly koalas and bulky bears look for all the world like first or second cousins. Scientists who classify the members of the animal kingdom take note of their similarities. They also take note of certain outstanding differences and insist on classing these three look alikes in separate animal families.
For example, all three are mammals of the sophisticated animal class Mammalia. This qualifies them all as warm blooded, air breathing animals that bear live babies and feed them on mother’s milk.
In the scientific sorting system, the large classes are subdivided into smaller orders, based on different physical features. Bears and pandas belong in the order Carnivora, even though they eat both meat and vegetables. The cuddly koala belongs in the order Marsupialia, with the kangaroo and other Australian marsupials that carry their babes in pouches.
The toothy carnivore order includes bears and pandas, plus lions and tigers, dogs and seals, badgers and a vast variety of other meat eaters obviously all the carnivores are not related to each other. This problem is solved by separating the large order into smaller family groups of similar types.
The two Asian pandas, one large and one small, belong in the family Procyonidae. Their first cousins include a fluffy little tree dweller called the kinkajou and our fabulous ring tailed raccoon. This odd relationship is based on teeth and other unique family features.
The bears and only the bears belong to the familyUrsidae. Hence, according to the experts, bears and pandas belong in separate families and the very different koala belongs in a separate order.
The classifications are named from older languages and usually give a few clues. Ursidae is coined from an older word for bear. Procyonidae means before the dog, perhaps because the panda family seems older than the do family. Phalangeridae, the koala’s family name, refers to his clever f fingers and toes.