Scientists divided over resurrection of extinct quagga species

This quagga is displaying its true stripes.

A team of scientists who claimed to have resurrected an extinct zebra relative are facing mixed reviews, with some comparing it to “Jurassic Park” for equines, while others dismiss it as a superficial imitation.

“They’re essentially just creating a zebra with fewer stripes,” remarked Douglas McCauley, an evolution expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara, criticizing the project to the Wall Street Journal.

The creature in question is the quagga, a member of the horse family that once roamed Africa’s Great Plains before being hunted to extinction — the last known individual, a mare, passed away in an Amsterdam zoo in 1883.

This galloping herbivore resembled its striped cousin but was more brown in color and sported stripes only on the front portion of its body and head, resembling a prototype of a zebra.

In 1987, a group of dedicated quagga enthusiasts launched the Quagga Project to revive this unique zebra using advances in genetic technology, marking the first attempt to apply this method to an extinct species, as reported by the WSJ.

Instead of cloning the animal, the scientists opted for “selective rebreeding” by breeding subspecies to achieve the desired outcome. This process can be likened to a painter mixing different colors on a palette to create a specific hue.

See also  Scientists discover new way to make fuel from water and sunlight, but more work is needed