A group of scientists in Cape Town, South Africa have claimed they have successfully carried out the revival of an extinct zebra-like mammal known as the quagga. This claim, however, has sparked controversy in scientific and conservationist circles and is being heavily disputed.
The effort to revive the quagga has been ongoing for almost four decades, and critics of this scientific group insist that they have only produced a knock-off, some of them saying it is nothing more than a less stripey zebra.
It is also worth mentioning that, at the moment, there is a well-documented global race to revive extinct animals such as the quagga, the woolly mammoth, and the dodo bird.
The last known quagga died at the Amsterdam Zoo in 1883
Quaggas are quite similar to zebras. For one, quaggas were natives of southern Africa, but aggressive hunting in this location completely wiped out the species.
However, unlike Zebras, quaggas only had stripes on their heads, necks, and sometimes their backs rather than all over their body. The animal is also named after the barking sound it produced, with the double “g’s” in quagga, being pronounced as “ch.”
Crucially, efforts to bring quaggas back to life have been ongoing for almost forty years. This is because the quagga was the first extinct animal whose DNA was sequenced.
Rau Quagga through the Quagga Project, honestly. They almost exactly match the art done of historical quagga during the time period when they were alive. pic.twitter.com/v6Jz641K2p
— Cam Clow (@camthecowboyman) July 4, 2024
Some scientists believe that given that the quagga was a subspecies of the most common type of zebra, it could be revived through selective breeding.
The process of selective breeding was chosen because, unlike cloning, rebreeding has the potential to recreate an entire population that also has greater genetic diversity.
The Quagga Revival Project was founded in 1987
In the almost four decades that scientists have been trying to bring back the animal, through The Quagga Project, there was a major breakthrough in the early 2000s. By 2005, the scientists on the project said that 10 percent of the 150 animals they owned would successfully breed with 19th-century quaggas.
The success of this project is due to the method they are using to carry out the de-extinction process, as most of the scientific community agrees that selective breeding might ultimately be the way to go for animal revival efforts.
(11) Last that we will mention here is the quagga. A peculiar sub-species of plains zebra, extinct in the the 19th century, the modern Quagga Project seeks to recreate them. Often termed “Rau quagga” after the project’s founder, Reinhold Rau, their resemblance is superficial. pic.twitter.com/geHXYtXzu3
— The Extinctions (@Theextinctions) August 31, 2021
With that being said, it is also worth mentioning that controversy surrounding the revival of the quagga is expected to be cleared up next year. This is because Annelin Moltosi, a molecular biologist working with The Quagga Project, plans to sequence the genome of the re-bred animals.
This would provide a definite answer as to whether or not the quaggas owned by the project are actual quaggas or simply less stripey zebras.
