Pandas are such a common sight in today’s busy world (cute pandas,sneezing pandas, Kung Fu pandas, humans dressed as pandas) that it’s hard to imagine a time when this beast was not known. Yet as recently as 150 years ago, this was the case for all but a handful of people.
The first westerner to clap eyes on a panda is thought to have been a French priest and naturalist known as Armand David. He’d been posted to China in 1862 to spread the Christian word, but was a keen naturalist too (“all science is dedicated to the study of God’s works and glorifies the Author”) and went on several collecting trips over the course of his stay, sending specimens back to the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.
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