The zebra has stripes only on half of its body. Is it because the printer is out of ink?

Densely packed animal skeletons, bizarre animal specimens, brains suspended in glass bottles... There is a creepy (and animal-loving) museum on University Street in London, England. It is the Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London (UCL).

The museum was founded by British anatomist and zoologist Robert Edmond Grant in 1828. Its original purpose was to serve as a teaching specimen library for the UCL Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. After more than 190 years of accumulation, the Grant Museum of Zoology has collected 68,000 zoological collections, which is like a microcosm of the animal kingdom.

Skulls and brains of various mammals | Jiangnan Dieyi

The Grant Museum of Zoology has a rich collection of rare and precious specimens that have been rediscovered in recent years. A drawer of "turkey" bones in the museum was later proven to be the bones of the famous extinct animal dodo. In 1972, after two "zebra" skeletons were re-identified, it was unexpectedly discovered that one of them was the long-extinct quagga (Equus quagga quagga), and it was one of only seven quagga skeletons in the world.

During World War II, this precious quagga skeleton specimen lost its left hind leg. The museum used 3D printing technology to reconstruct its skeleton using black nylon material. Today, the quagga, dodo, and thylacine, who have the same fate, are all treasures of the museum | Jiangnan Dieyi

A strange animal with half its body covered in ink

When it comes to zebras, everyone must be familiar with them. We can see those herbivores with black and white stripes in zoos or documentaries. But when it comes to the zebra, I believe many people cannot accurately describe its appearance.

Portrait of a quagga in the Versailles Zoo by Nicolas Maréchal | wikipedia

The quagga is native to the southern part of the African continent. Its front half looks like a zebra, and its back half looks like a horse. It is also called a pseudo-zebra. Because its fur is dark brown and the stripes are mainly concentrated on the head and front half of the body, some people joke that this animal looks like a zebra that has lost its ink while it was alive. Because the appearance of the quagga is very different from the common zebra, many zoologists in the 19th century regarded it as an independent species based on its morphological characteristics.

Quagga at London Zoo, photographed by Frederick York. Only five photos of it survive | wikipedia

Once upon a time, there were considerable populations of quaggas in the Cape Province, Karoo and the Orange Free State in southern Africa. However, in the late 19th century, with the wanton hunting of European colonists and the development of local animal husbandry, the population of quaggas continued to decline sharply. In 1878, the last wild quagga died in the Orange Free State, declaring the quagga extinct in the wild. On August 12, 1883, the last captive female quagga also died alone in the Amsterdam Zoo in the Netherlands. Ironically, after the quagga became extinct, people searched museums all over the world, but only found 7 skeletons and 23 skins.

The “resurrection” of the Quagga Project

In 1984, scientists conducted the first DNA study on the extinct quagga, sequencing the trace DNA in the quagga specimens and comparing it with the DNA of other equids. The study found that the quagga is more closely related to the zebra. Later, with the further development of molecular biology, the evidence of mitochondrial DNA sequence comparison showed that the quagga was not an independent species, but a subspecies of the plains zebra (Equus quagga, formerly Equus burchellii). In accordance with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the extinct quagga was downgraded from species to subspecies, and the scientific name of the quagga was revised from Equus quagga to Equus quagga quagga (three-name method). At this time, the quagga with a new identity had been nearly a century away from its extinction.

A molecular biology study published in 2005 showed that the quagga diverged from the plains zebra about 120,000 to 290,000 years ago. Due to geographical isolation or adaptation to the arid environment, the quagga's fur color evolved rapidly and gradually developed unique stripes. However, this "discordant" stripe did not save the quagga's life. After the quagga became extinct, not even a few decent fur specimens were preserved.

The plains zebra is the most widespread of the three living species of zebras and the most common. | Yathin S Krishnappa / wikipedia

The extinction of the Quagga is a great pity. In order to bring the Quagga back to life, a scientific research team called the Quagga Project was established in 1987. The researchers selected plains zebras with fewer leg stripes and a brownish-yellow body color, and crossbred them. The individuals similar to the Quagga were retained from the offspring to strengthen and consolidate the traits. The "quagga" selected from them is called "Rau Quagga".

After two years of waiting, the Quagga Project recently welcomed a high-quality Rau Quagga | quaggaproject.org

By 2013, the Quagga Project had bred the fifth generation. Does this mean that the Quagga subspecies has been "resurrected"? In fact, the Quagga Project is not a de-extinction in the strict sense, but a reverse restoration of the Quagga's coat color and stripes through artificial targeted breeding. Although the "Rau Quagga" with individual Quagga characteristics was produced, the Quagga gene pool could not be completely restored.

On September 4, 2021, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species was updated. The number of critically endangered species on the list rose from 6,811 in 2020 to 8,404. Their future fate will depend on our behavior and actions.