Ailurus

Ailurus is a genus in the order Carnivora and the sole genus of the family Ailuridae, first formally described in 1825. It contains a single recognized species, the red panda (Ailurus fulgens), also called the lesser panda, a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China with dense reddish-brown fur, a black belly and legs, white-lined ears, a mostly white muzzle and a ringed tail, and two subspecies, Himalayan and Chinese, that separated roughly 250,000 years ago. Despite superficial similarities, the red panda is not closely related to the giant panda, which is a bear; modern genetic analysis places Ailurus within the Musteloidea clade alongside raccoons, weasels and skunks, and its false thumb for grasping bamboo evolved independently of the giant panda own. It is distributed across Nepal, the northeastern Indian states, Bhutan, Myanmar, Tibet and southwestern China, and is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2015, with an estimated global population of around 10,000 individuals and a declining trend.