Mammals · Perissodactyla · Equidae

Quagga

Equus quagga quagga

Extinct

No living individual remains anywhere in the world. See full glossary

The quagga was a subspecies of the plains zebra native to southern South Africa, recognisable because it had stripes only on the head, neck and front of the body, while the hindquarters were a uniform brown and the legs almost white. Settlers exterminated it during the nineteenth century in order to use its grazing for domestic livestock. The last wild individual was shot around 1878 and the last captive quagga died in Amsterdam zoo on 12 August 1883.

Weight

250 kg – 300 kg

Size

2.5 m – 2.6 m

Diet

Herbivore

Feeds mainly on plants.

Activity

Diurnal

Active mainly during the day.

Sighting difficulty

Impossible (extinct)

SavannaGrasslandHerbivore Diurnal Savanna Grassland Mammal

1countries9same family

Fun facts

GeneralA zebra striped only over the front half of its body; the last one died in Amsterdam in 1883.
It was the first extinct animal whose DNA was sequenced: in 1984 genetic material was extracted from a museum skin, and the result showed it to be a subspecies of the plains zebra rather than a separate species.
The Quagga Project has been selecting plains zebras with little rear striping since 1987 in order to recover its appearance; the result looks like a quagga, but it is not a resurrection of the subspecies.

Life cycle & biology

Skeleton type: Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (mammal)
Habitat & environment: Grassland and arid scrub of the Karoo and the southern Orange Free State, in South Africa

Sources consulted: https://www.iucnredlist.org/ | https://animaldiversity.org/ | https://es.wikipedia.org/