Quagga

The quagga was a subspecies of the plains zebra that lived in South Africa until becoming extinct late in the 19th century. It was long thought to be a distinct species, but early genetic studies have supported it being a subspecies of plains zebra. A more recent study suggested that it was the southernmost cline or ecotype of the species. The name comes from the Khoekhoe language and is said to be derived from its call, which sounded like ‘kwa-ha’

About Quagga in brief

The quagga was a subspecies of the plains zebra that lived in South Africa until becoming extinct late in the 19th century. It was long thought to be a distinct species, but early genetic studies have supported it being a subspecies of plains zebra. A more recent study suggested that it was the southernmost cline or ecotype of the species. The name comes from the Khoekhoe language and is said to be derived from its call, which sounded like \”kwa-ha\”. It was distinguished from other zebras by its limited pattern of primarily brown and white stripes, mainly on the front part of the body. It may have gathered into herds of 30–50. The last wild population lived in the Orange Free State; the quaggas was extinct in the wild by 1878. The Quagga Project is trying to recreate the phenotype of hair coat pattern and related characteristics by selectively breeding the closest subspecies which is Burchell’s zebra. Only 23 skins are preserved today, and only one quagGA was ever photographed alive. It is poorly represented in the fossil record, and the identification of these fossils is uncertain, as they were collected at a time when the name ‘quagga’ referred to allZebras. Fossil skulls of Equus mauritanicus from Algeria have been claimed to show affinities with the qugga and the plainsZebra, but they may be too badly damaged to allow definite conclusions to be drawn from them.

Quaggas have also been identified in cave art attributed to the San. Reginald Innes Pocock in 1902 was perhaps the first to suggest that the quags were a sub Species of plains Zebra. Some experts now suggest the two subspecies represent two ends of a cline of a species. Some researchers have even even claimed that the two species were valid members of a single species, such as E. q. Shortridge in 1934. The extinct northern population of Burchell’s zebra was later named Equus antiquorum, which means that it is today also referred to E.q. burchellii, after it was realised they were the same taxon as the now-extinct quaggas. The extinction of this population was close to the time when it was thought the two populations were close to being the same species, so the name E.Q. was used to refer to the two different subspecies. It has also been suggested that the extinct southernmost population, the Damara zebra, was a distinct subspecies. The extant northern population was later called Equus Antiquorum, and it is still used colloquially for the plains Zebra. The quaggas were once found in great numbers in the Karoo of Cape Province and the southern part of the Orange Free State. After the Dutch settlement of South Africa began, the quaggga was extensively hunted, as it competed with domesticated animals for forage.

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