What kind of animals are pandas? Do pandas belong to the cat or bear family?

The panda belongs to the bear family.

The ancestor of the giant panda is Ailuaractos lufengensis, the standard Chinese name for the giant panda is actually "cat and bear", meaning "cat-like bear". This is the earliest panda that evolved from a bear-like species that was primarily a carnivore. The main branch of the panda continued to evolve in central and southern China.

One of them appeared at the beginning of the Pleistocene about 3 million years ago, smaller than the panda, from the teeth it is inferred that it has evolved into an omnivorous beast that also ate bamboo, oviparous bears, and since then this main branch expanded to the subtropics, and its distribution is widespread in northern, northwestern, eastern, southwestern, and southern China, as well as in northern Vietnam and Myanmar, fossils have been found. During this process, giant pandas adapted to life in subtropical bamboo forests, gradually increasing in size and relying on bamboo for their livelihood. In the middle and late Pleistocene of 500-700,000 years ago is the heyday of the giant panda.

Expanded Information:

The panda is known by its ancient and modern names. p>The ancient and modern naming of the panda:

The modern name of the giant panda (i.e., the Chinese name for the panda in China) was initially called the cat-bear or the big cat-bear, which means that its face is as round and fat as a cat's, but its whole body is like a bear's, and some people even put it under the family of the bears.

Because before the 1950s, the Chinese way of writing is straight, recognition is from right to left, and changed to the horizontal book from left to right, when the museum in Beibei, Sichuan Province, in 1939 when the exhibition description of the title with the horizontal book, the name of the cat and bear, and at that time, visitors used to the straight book from right to left recognition, mistaken for the panda.

Since then, first of all, in the main production of its hometown (Sichuan), the long term to the blackmail error, and in the long run, it is also accustomed to change the name of the cat bear for the panda. Later, it is the common Chinese name of the giant panda, it is also recognized. Its local name, in its hometown is called white bear, or white old bear, also called the flower bear.

In the Minshan Tibetan area called Dang or Du Dong Ga (gǎ), Pingwu Baima Dabu people are called Dong Ga; Liangshan Yi called E Qu. All these local names, although called differently, and its meaning and the ancient books called braves or tapirs, are nothing more than a description of its body color white, or black and white, or the size of the body like a bear.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Giant Panda (Mammal)

China.com - Panda