No, the episode name isn’t a typo. Rather, it’s the name of a subspecies of zebra we’re going to be discussing today. Along the way, we will explore clines, the purpose of zebra stripes and an attempt to breed back the quagga from its zebra cousins. Why don’t we hear more about it? Well, because it no longer exists…
Sources for this episode: 1) Bryden, H. A. (1889), Kloof and karroo: Sport, legend and natural history in Cape Colony, with a notice of the game birds, and of the present distribution of antelopes and larger game, London and New York: Longmans, Green and Co. Available at: Internet Archive [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 2) Cain, M. L., Bowman, W. D. and Hacker, S. D. (2011), Ecology (Second Edition). Sunderland, Massachusetts, Sinauer Associated Ltd. 3) Davis, N., The Guardian (2019), Why the zebra got its stripes: to deter flies from landing on it (online) [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 4) Douglas, G. (1821), A Communication of a Singular Fact in Natural History, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1776-1886) 111: 20–22. Available at Internet Archive [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 5) The Editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica (2018), Quagga (online) [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 6) Heywood, P. (2020), Sexual dimorphism of body size in taxidermy specimens of Equus quagga quagga Boddaert (Equidae), Journal of Natural History 53(45-46): 2757-2761. 7) Author unknown, The Quagga Project (date unknown), Home (online) [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 8) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Quagga (online) [Accessed 14/05/2021].