The quagga, whose name is 
onomatopoeia for the sound it made,
is an extinct subspecies of zebra. 
They diverged from zebra during the 
Pleistocene Epoch, with quaggas 
developing a different coat pattern
than zebras. They were partially 
covered by brown and white stripes, 
with a brown body and white legs. 
They were two and a half meters long
and almost a meter and a half tall 
at the shoulder. Quaggas were lively 
equids, but unfortunately they were 
easy to kill, which lead to their 
untimely extinction at the hands of 
humans in 1878. They were prized for
their meat and their skins, which 
were used for trading.

Found in South Africa until their
unfortunate extinction, quaggas 
lived in grasslands in mutually 
beneficial relationships with 
wildebeast and ostriches. They 
roamed in herds that could contain 
between 30 to 50 animals, grazing 
on the abundant grass. In 1987, a 
breeding project was started in 
South Africa with the intent to 
selectively breed zebras until they
develop a quagga-like pattern. Once
a population has been created, these 
pseudo-quaggas will be reintroduced 
into the wild even though their 
genetic code will be different. 
Foals in the current generation of
the project are quickly losing their 
stripes and starting to resemble 
the extinct quagga more and more.
