Pandas? I know giant pandas don't eat meat, but the red panda is the only other panda I know and I didn't think they ate meat. What pandas are you talking about?
Genetically, pandas and raccoons evolved from the same ancestor. While the giant pandas themselves may not eat meat anymore, they're still members of Carnivora, even though they're not technically "carnivores".
That's why there's a difference between genetics and function - categorizing something with its ancestors is more scientific, while categorizing something by its abilities is more useful in a game like this - Spore is going to decide what you are based on your teeth, not what your mama's teeth were. Hence the comparison between the "evolutionary chart" idea someone mentioned, and how the Spore server will group our critters when populating an ecosystem - they both are useful in different ways.
It'll be a little annoying to see a world full of four-finned fish, four legged salamanders, and suddenly, six-legged mammals... or when you investigate a planet on the other side of the universe and discover a creature identical to one from your homeworld... but I can forgive a little scientific accuracy in exchange for some creative license. And who knows - maybe once the database grows big enough, they can modify the server to pupulate new planets even more accurately and believably - all on their end without changing a thing in our copies of the game!
