Click here to see the related story, "Could Pandas Be an Evolutionary Mistake—or Proof of an Intelligent Designer?"
For decades, the panda has been an icon of the conservation movement, along with other majestic animals like the Siberian tiger, the mountain gorilla, the blue whale, and, most recently, the polar bear. These conservation superstars have a few things in common: They're big, they're mammals, and they're pretty—earning them the label "charismatic megafauna."But they're obviously not the only animals in danger of extinction.
