The Quagga 12 August

On this day, 12 August, in 1883 at Artis Magistra zoo, which is in Amsterdam, the last of the Quagga died, the remainder of its species having been hunted to extinction. The last wild Quagga was probably shot in 1878. The Quagga was given its name by the KhoiKhoi (who used to be known as Hottentot). The name is onomatopoeic and, apparently, resembles the mating call of the Quagga.

A strange looking animal, it was once found in great numbers in the Cape Province of South Africa as well as in the southern part of the Orange Free State. The Quagga was, for many years thought to be a sub-species of the zebra, but had vivid stripes at the front of its body, faded stripes with wide inter-stripe spaces around the midriff and a plain brown rump.

In 1788 the Quagga was classified as a species, Equus quagga; however, over the next 50 years or so, many other zebras were described but because of the great variation in coat patterns (no two zebras are alike), taxonomists were left with a number of so-called "species", and a sneaky suspicion that none of these were separate species or even subspecies but a growing idea that most were simply natural variants. Taxonomists were, of course completely in the dark about the Quagga because it had become extinct 30 years before the arguments started.

A century later, science galloped to the rescue and our Quagga became the first ever extinct creature to have its DNA studied. Genetic scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have demonstrated that the Quagga was not a separate species, but diverged from the plains zebra, Equus burchelli, between 120,000 and 290,000 years ago.

For those of you, and I know there are many, that like to get stuck into the Minutiae of nomenclature, this discovery suggests that Equus quagga should be named Equus burchelli quagga. However, heaven forefend that we should forget the rules of biological nomenclature, which clearly state that where there are two or more alternative names for a single species, the name first used takes priority. As the Quagga was described about 30 years earlier than the plains zebra, it appears that the correct terms are E. quagga quagga for the Quagga and E. quagga burchelli for the plains zebra. Some people in South Africa (known as 'raving loonies' where I come from) have begun a project to breed back our Quagga by selective breeding from plains zebra stock.