Pandas had bamboo stick to beat predators

The discovery of an ancient giant panda skull has confirmed its bamboo diet dates back more than 2 million years and may have played a key part in its survival.

A Chinese-US research team reports its results today following studies on a fossil skull found in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in 2001.

The six fossils unearthed in Jinyin Cave are dated between 2.4 and 2 million years ago, according to the report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a prestigious US journal.