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Research scholars in pursuit of the giant panda through Chinese writings were divided into three major schools, each calling their find by a different name. Although exponents of each school were convinced that they had arrived at the correct conclusion, citing all sorts of more than respectable authorities, it is fairly clear that none of them was absolutely certain that these sources were unimpeachable.
Pivin
The most courageous, or the most desperate, among these anxious scholars came up with an animal called pixiu. Now this was, at best, a controversial choice, since no one was certain what this animal looked like, or indeed if it had existed at all. Erya had identified the pixiu as "an animal resembling either a tiger or a bear", a statement of confusion in itself. An illustration of this animal in the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Advanced Chinese shows it more like a rabbit. The pixiu depicted here boasted of a spotted coat (like a leopard) and a set of sharp teeth, giving an impression of great malevolence. All sources agreed, moreover, that this was, without any doubt, a carnivorous animal. The modern giant panda, on the other hand, subsists on bamboo.
In the Book of History, Sima Qian (163-85 B.C.) stated that the legendary emperors of antiquity had adopted a pixiu as an emblem to arouse soldiers to heroic deeds, by infusing them with the ferociousness characteristic of the animal. Furthermore, modern medical practitioners in certain regions of China today still hang fabulous likenesses of this animal in clinics and sickrooms to frighten away the evil spirits that cause illnesses by dwelling in the sick persons.
Mo
Other scholars offered an animal named mo as the giant panda of yore. This was a more comfortable choice since evidence offered by exponents was no longer purely legendary. Still, acceptance of their conclusions cannot be made without difficulty. For, in actuality, there were two distinctly different and separate animals which were referred to as mo in Chinese writings.
The more scientific among the exponents of the mo as giant pandas.