Red Pandas
Not long ago, I thought that my daemon was a red panda. She's not, it turns out -- she's a spotted skunk, and her name is Sanuye. Nevertheless, red pandas are interesting animals and I have a fondness for them.If you look at this picture[1], you'll see that red pandas look a bit like foxes. They live in east Asia -- parts of China, Nepal, Burma, Myanmar. They spend most of their time in trees, are omnivorous but mostly eat bamboo leaves, are slightly larger than a house cat, and have pointed ears and long bushy tails.
They may look like foxes at first, but they're actually quite different. They can climb trees, for one. Their claws are semi-retractable, and their feet are large. They can hold objects in their paws. And here's something pretty amazing -- they can stand upright. No, that's not a person in a red panda suit. To prove it, here's the same panda in a more ordinary position. (I don't know where it hid its tail when it stood up.)
I know I've got you hooked, so here are some more panda images for your pleasure[2].
When I looked at some films of red pandas in the wild, I was struck by the way they move. There's something philosophical about their motions, the way they calmly survey their environment. They're agile in the trees, but in an unhurried and unfussed manner.
Red pandas are an endangered species. The rate at which their habitats, and therefore they, are disappearing is pretty alarming. That's unfortunate, because they're quite distinctive animals.
Where they fit in to the evolutionary tree is still debated. DNA research places them within range of the weasel, skunk, and raccoon families (Mustelidae, Mephitidae, and Procyonidae, respectively). But they have evolved apart from those animals for many millions of years. Anyone who says red pandas are "a type of X" is wrong. There's nothing in the red panda's family, Ailuridae, except red pandas (and some extinct animals), so they cannot be said to be a type of anything.
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[1] This image is from the Wikipedia article on red pandas.
[2] This collection of images is from http://www.picturesfree.org/panda/album1.html.