How A Zebra Lost Its Stripes

New DNA analysis show how the quagga, a now extinct creature that had a front half like a zebra and a back section like a horse, developed the strange color markings that it did. 

Researchers from Yale University, the Smithsonian Institute and the Max Planck Institute, compared not only DNA samples from quagga skeletons, but also coat color and habits of existing zebras with that of the quagga. The combined analysis show that the quagga diverged from Plains zebra in Africa about 120,000 to 290,000 years ago during the Ice Age. Once isolated, it quickly the unique body structure and color markings that made it famous.

Quaggas once populated South Africa's Cape Province and the southern part of the Orange Free State. The strange-looking subspecies of zebra has been extinct for over 100 years; the last wild one was probably shot in the late 1870s and the last captive specimen died on August 12, 1883 at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.

--Ker Than

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Credit: Yale University