South African scientists are working to resurrect the quagga, a sub-species of zebra that was hunted into extinction by colonialists.

Quaggas look like a cross between a horse and a zebra but they don’t have any stripes.

So the scientists have spent decades breeding the stripes away in zebras and their project is almost complete. “We now have a total population of over 100 animals within the Quagga Project,” says March Turnbull, the project coordinator.

Large herds of quagga were still roaming South Africa’s steppes at the end of the 17th century. But they were exterminated by European settlers who saw them as useless competitors for grazing land.

The world’s last quagga died in an Amsterdam zoo in 1883.

That is, unless the breeding experiments work. “We are more optimistic than ever that we have made an important breakthrough towards the project goal,” Turnbull says.

He says that goal will be achieved when there is a breeding herd of about 40 animals that look like quaggas.

So far, that applies to around 20 animals, even if their brown colour is still a little weak.

The team has been breeding quagga-like animals since 1987, through carefully selected crosses of zebras who have matching gene pools.