The quagga looks like what you'd get if the Dick Whittington costume department lost the front end of their pantomime horse three minutes before curtain call and then stumbled across the head of a pantomime zebra in a disused wardrobe. In truth, the quagga was a South African subspecies of zebra that went extinct at the end of the 1800s. It was heartbreakingly hunted to extinction for its meat and skin by Afrikaners and their early Dutch ancestors. Like, damn, who could bear to shoot a guy like that? Look how sweet he is. Those eyes could melt the hearts of a thousand onlookers at fifty paces and indeed they did in the 1860s and 70s; the quagga above lived in London Zoo, attracting thousands of visitors every year until its death in 1872. It is also the only living quagga that was ever photographed. Sadly, the final wild specimen died in 1878 and then, after desperate but futile conservation attempts, we kissed goodbye to the quagga for good when the last of its kind passed away in a Dutch zoo in 1883. A special breeding programme called the Quagga Project was subsequently set up in South Africa in 1987. Although the original quagga subspecies cannot be brought back until we develop more sophisticated cloning techniques, naturalists seek to selectively breed a population of zebras to have the quagga's signature markings.
Peter Austin initially joined WhatCulture as an occasional contributor to our Film, Gaming and Science sections, but made the mistake of telling us that he'd been making videos in his bedroom for over a decade. Since then he's been a vital member of our YouTube team and routinely sets the standard for smart-casual wear in the office.
