East Tennessee State University paleontologist Steven Wallace holds the skulls of a red panda fossil (left) and a modern red panda (right) on March 14, 2008.

(by AOL News)
It has the face of a giant panda bear and the body of a small raccoon. This unusual, cuddly-looking animal is the red panda, and until recently, was only believed to be native to the mountains of Nepal, Burma and China.

Now, according to recent fossil findings, it appears the enigmatic red cousin to the black-and-white panda once roamed the long-ago forests of Tennessee.

At the Gray Fossil Site a startling number of mammal bones have been uncovered, including a saber-toothed cat, ground sloth, rhinoceros, alligator, camel, shovel-tusked elephant, Eurasian badger and a red panda, dating back more than 4 million years to the period known as the late Miocene era.
Read more about Exclusive: Traces of Red Panda Found in Tennessee on AOL News.