Adorable red pandas are actually two species

Cute, fuzzy, and bumbling, red pandas are beloved of many wildlife watchers.

Scientists have now learned they exist as two seperate species, which may help conservation efforts as their numbers dwindle.

Matthew Larotonda reports.

One of these pandas may not be like the other.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered that bushy-tailed, bumbling, bamboo-loving red pandas may all look the same, more or less, but genetically they're actually two separate species.

And that's important, they say, because it might help conservation efforts.

Red pandas are native to Asia but their numbers are dwindling in the wild due to poaching, habitat loss, and other human interference.

The researchers say that zoos should try to avoid interbreeding the two species, to maintain the furballs' uniqueness.