A few weeks ago I was at the San Diego zoo and was told something that shocked me out of my complascent stupor:
Giant Pandas are a kind of bear, not particularly closely related to raccoons.
My whole world has come crashing down around me. 
-FrL-
Think this belongs in MPSIMS.
I’m not a biologist, but I don’t think it’s just you; as far as I know, every knowledgable person thought the panda was a member of the racoon family until relatively recently. It wasn’t until DNA analysis that we learned that it’s actually a bear:
Moved to MPSIMS.
Frylock, GQ is for General Questions. MSPIMS is for, well, Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share 
-xash
General Questions Moderator
Also, giant pandas are now thought to be bears (as little children had always thought), but lesser pandas are apparently still basically raccoons. So I guess one of them isn’t a panda at all. And just to really weird things out, I believe the “real” panda–that is, the animal that was first given that name–is the little raccoon one. So I dunno what we should call the fuzzy black-and-white vegetarian bears.
The’re not strict vegetarians. Also, IIRC one once got a zoo keepers hand as a tasty bit.
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Also, giant male pandas are now known to stand on their heads to pee.
Am I the only one who grew up calling them “panda bears?” Little 'uns, big 'uns, they were always bears to me . . .
More than most!
I called them that too! I didn’t even know they were considered to be part of the raccoon family till this thread. Man, have I been living under a rock or something?
Do you ever get the feeling that biologists just like to mix things around everyone once in a well just to show they are making great “discoveries” to everyone? When I was little, the biologists would say “Hey, little boy what kind of animal is a Panda Bear?” Me, “It is a bear!” Biologist, “Oh little boy, you are so stupid. Panda Bears aren’t really bears, they are related to raccoons. That is something that all us biologists knew and you didn’t.”
Now, I am grown up. They come back and say, “Just kidding, it really is a bear.”
What’s the big shock? They always seemed like bears to me.
Well this thread has sure gone all bear-shaped.
Ouch! That one hurt.
I used to have to do that some mornings when younger. Not so much anymore.
It appears to have been considered a raccoon at least through 1979 - I have an old zoology text which places the Greater Panda (aka “Panda Bear”) in the Procyonidae (raccoon) family. From looking around a bit, it appears that the taxonomic change from “raccoon” to “bear” happened somewhere between '79 and '85.
Part of the reason for this strange classification appears to be the fact that it was widely regarded that the Greater and Lesser Pandas were related, and that the lesser panda was a member of the raccoon family (which, of course, would mean that the greater ones should be, too). It has since been found that the two pandas really aren’t that closley related, so could be separated without screwing up the taxonomy. Of course, exactly where the lesser panda falls is now under dispute (see my post #29 in this thread).