The Quagga

The quagga, a zebra ancestor, was the first extinct creature whose DNA was sequenced. In 1878, it was hunted to extinction. The Quagga Project has been working for years to successfully resurrect the animal. The quagga's estimated length was 257 cm (8 ft 5 in) and its shoulder height was 125–135 cm (4 ft 1 in–4 ft 5 foot). It was distinguishable from other zebras by the little pattern of stripes on its body, which were generally brown and white and mostly on the front.

The back looks more like a horse because it was brown and had no stripes. Between people, there was a big variation in how the stripes were distributed. The quagga's behaviour is unknown, but it is possible that it congregated in herds of 30 to 50 animals. While being described as wild and vivacious, quaggas were also thought to be more gentle than the closely related Burchell's zebra. In the past, they may be found in large numbers in South Africa's southern Orange Free State and the Karoo of the Cape Province.

Similar to the aurochs, the quagga was brought back by a backcrossing technique in which zebras were crossed to provide the necessary traits of the extinct subspecies. The Quagga Effort was successful, in contrast to the ongoing aurochs project. Only six of the more than 100 animals that have been bred exhibit the characteristics that distinguish quaggas. The idea is to keep breeding them until there is a herd of 50, at which point they would be allowed to coexist and behave like animals would in the wild.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Perissodactyla
Family: Equidae
Genus: Equus
Species: E. quagga
Subspecies: †E. q. quagga