Talk:Quagga

Galata Gayoso
What on Earth is the "Galata Gayoso" - I am South African and have never heard this term in my life - a Google search reveals many references - all from this Wikipedia page! As far as I know the Quagga was from the Karoo area.(Michaelwild (talk) 05:27, 17 March 2013 (UTC))

Catalogue of remaining skins
Nice page: http://www.quaggaproject.org/quagga-skins.htm FunkMonk (talk) 21:22, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * On a related note, and I'll see if I can add this to the article, it appears the now extinct population of Burchell's zebras in South Africa were intermediate in striping between the quagga and the existing population. This means the variation was clinal. FunkMonk (talk) 23:32, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Lord Morton's Mare
In this article, it says that Lord Morton's mare was bred with a black stallion. However, on the article of the same name, it says she was bred with a white one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.110.137.54 (talk) 09:31, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Quagga IPA
I think the IPA transcription is incorrect. The citation right after it links to the NYTMagazine article, where the pronunciation is given in Times-style phonetic spelling as "KWAH-ha". Among other things, this would seem to indicate a single primary stress on the initial syllable, not 2 primary stresses (one on each syllable). Also, I believe Times-style "AH" is a low back vowel, not a schwa. However, as I understand it, the "correct" pronunciation is meant to be the standard Dutch rendering of Quagga, so perhaps someone with experience transcribing Dutch in IPA could repair the transcription.2604:2000:F2C8:3301:6DF1:53A6:A5A5:D0BB (talk) 14:44, 2 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Added Oxford Dictionaries pronunciation and reference. Bazza (talk) 12:45, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Call
The intro gives the call as "kwahaah" while the Taxonomy section renders it "kwa-ha-ha". Kwa-ha-ha is the version used on the main page FA section. Is "kwahaah" a recognized transcription or is it a typo? --Khajidha (talk) 12:37, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Both, but there should of course not be a difference between the lead and the article. FunkMonk (talk) 14:17, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Quagga VS Okapi
Should the Quagga article and Okapi article be linked to each other since there's alot of people that get the two confused since they both have zebra stripes on part of their bodies but not all of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SuperMarioMuseum (talk • contribs) 15:37, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

"Blue horse"
There is apparently a 19th century report of a hairless "blue horse" found among a group of quaggas, which might either be an aberrant domestic horse that ended up there somehow, or an aberrant quagga. Worth mentioning? Here are some sources, which cite further sources... FunkMonk (talk) 16:23, 25 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't bother. Sounds like either a tall tale or something that was a weird one-off. The two sources, a blog and a book on cryptozoology, aren't terribly reliable. Also, hairlessness in horses is generally fatal, it's a genetic problem for the Akhal Teke, for example.  Montanabw (talk)  08:42, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Alright. They both refer to an 1868 account, though... FunkMonk (talk) 14:54, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Critique of the Article
This article is very informative and references a good number of sources; the format of the article appears typical for the subject matter, containing taxonomic information with a subsection on the evolution and classification of the Quagga, and sections on the description, behavior and ecology, and decline and extinction. The subsection on the Quagga Project appears relevant and relatively well-sourced. I am left with few questions about the article but general curiosity about the subject. In general I think the article is in need of a few tweaks grammatically. The lead section is longer than most other sections, and may need to be shortened, with the excessive information being put into the other sections (measurements and description should be in the description section, history of hunting after Dutch settlement in decline and extinction). A few statements are questionable, like the last section - "The technology to use recovered DNA for cloning does not yet exist." I believe these types of statements should be qualified with a date. Lanie0029 (talk) 03:54, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi. The intro is simply a summary of the entre article, so there is no unique info to be moved into other sections (the length should be fine). As for grammatical issues, feel free to propose corrections. As for the cloning issue, are you disputing that the technology does not yet exist? If it did exist, we would have cloned quaggas already... FunkMonk (talk) 09:00, 23 September 2016 (UTC)


 * added page number needed tags to three citations, but I removed one because it did already have one. I believe added the remaining sources, would you be able to provide the page numbers? FunkMonk (talk) 11:59, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Seems the citations were added by an IP. Not sure what to do, the info is useful, but I have no way to verify it. FunkMonk (talk) 12:48, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I fixed most of the missing page numbers, but there is still one where I don't have the book in question... FunkMonk (talk) 02:45, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Fixed it by stitching together the info from other sources, and corrected some info (Lord Morton didn't want to "save the quagga from extinction" before it was even thought to be declining), certainly wasn't easy... FunkMonk (talk) 05:02, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Repetitive pictures
Hello, I propose taking out one of the black and white pictures of the London mare, as they are all generally the same and having four pictures of the same individual does not help to understand the topic any better. The article currently appears to have too many pictures. What opinions do people have on this issue?

‡ Єl Cid, Єl Caɱ̩peador ᐐT₳LKᐬ  12:55, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I disagree, and you would assume all of the FAC reviewers disagreed too, since none of them brought it up. Since these are the only photos of the animal alive (only one more exists, and it is too bad to show here), and show it in different poses, they are all notable. As for removing the photo of the last specimen alive, that was an even stranger move. If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it. Or at least discuss it first, not after. FunkMonk (talk) 13:21, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, at the time this was promoted to a featured article, there were only THREE pictures of the London mare, per here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quagga&oldid=568634060 . Further, there were NINE pictures when the article was promoted, and there are TWELVE now. So, things have changed since then. ‡ Єl Cid, Єl Caɱ̩peador  ᐐT₳LKᐬ  13:28, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The text has also been expanded since then, which has made more room for photos. In any case, unless the photos are crammed together or disrupting headers, I see no reason to remove them simply due to supposed "repetition". They are staggered left/right, and leave enough room for the text not to be too squeezed. Anyhow, with extinct animals, the available imagery is often repetitive, simply because it isn't/wasn't possible to illustrate/photograph these animals in various situations while they were alive, many images simply show them in "ideal" poses. Does this mean we should limit our image selection, even if there will never be alternatives? I see no compelling reason why. FunkMonk (talk) 13:32, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The 4 pictures are practically the exact same. Just because there is more than one picture of something doesn't mean we should post every picture known to exist. How many pictures are there, for example, of zebras? Thousands, at least. But they are not all included, because it is understood that the number of images should be limited if the additional pictures fail to add anything to the understanding. It's not a huge deal, I just believe the number of pictures is excessive, and am looking for a third opinion. ‡ Єl Cid, Єl Caɱ̩peador  ᐐT₳LKᐬ  19:47, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Errr, there are quite a few zebras alive today, so it wouldn't exactly be hard to obtain a diversity of images of them. This here animal is extinct, and as I already stated, only five photos of it alive exist, four of which are shown here, each showing slightly different angles and postures (and several of them have been widely reproduced in the relevant literature). In a sense, this is all we have left of the live animal, which makes each of them a very important historical document. That is in no way comparable to the situation with random photos of extant zebras. FunkMonk (talk) 20:11, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * There is one oversight when it comes to images though, which is that we have none of a foal. We have no photos, but this drawing might suffice, and it could replace one of the old photos. I'll try to wiggle it in. FunkMonk (talk) 08:20, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * That seems entirely sensible. The article overall is not overweight in images. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:49, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I added this image, which one source claims the above image was based on, though I have my doubts. The quality isn't great, but at least it shows a live colt (though the German caption just says foal). FunkMonk (talk) 09:41, 22 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I've now placed the photos together in a way that looks better than before. FunkMonk (talk) 12:11, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Quagga etymology
Please do not include references to the etymology of quagga. The historical origin is not clearly known, and online lexicographical resources are unreliable when discussing the Khoekhoe-branch languages. The Lucie Möller book "Of the Same Breath" is not an academic linguistic publication and cannot serve as a formal source on language history. Ereshkigali (talk) 19:01, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * There is also another source used, The Mammals of the Southern African Subregion. In any case, you've added another source that says the etymology is unclear, but that doesn't rule out what we can list possibilities that have been suggested in the literature. And that's the thing, many etymologies are just hypotheses, but that certainly doesn't mean we can't include them. FunkMonk (talk) 19:07, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

The most comprehensive source is Nienaber 1963, who cites the onomatopoeia claim to Pettman 1906. A 120-year-old claim by a non-linguist is insufficient. Furthermore, in the case of endangered and extinct languages like those in the Khoekhoe branch, so much false etymologising has been claimed without solid linguistic grounds that spurious claims are damaging. It is more circumspect not to supply a point origin when nothing is clearly known.

If you feel that supplying the original Kora and Nama names for the quagga would serve as a compromise (!goareb and !goaxais, respectively), I will do that and cite appropriately. Nothing in either of those names is onomatopoeic; Engelbrecht and Meinhof actually suggest that they gloss as "brown kudu", although this is also tenuous.

There is no clear evidence that the original Cape Khoekhoe word from which "quagga" was loaned into Dutch was in any way similar to Nama !goareb and Kora !oaxais, however. Our earliest attestation is Wikar 1691 qhacha. This means that ultimately we do not have the original form of the word. Ereshkigali (talk) 19:17, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I certainly think it needs wider discussion. But I disagree we should remove the possibility entirely, the fact that it has been reported in multiple reliable sources is enough to state that it has been suggested. We just need to reword it so that it does not look like the final truth. Even if it turns out to be untrue, we would still need to mention that it has been proposed. Likewise, the article mentions that the quagga was once considered a species with multiple of its own subspecies, which is now known to be wrong, but that doesn't mean that this info shouldn't be included. The difference here is that no source has been provided that shows the included etymology is actually incorrect, which gives us even less justification to remove it. But as you do above, we could state where the idea comes from, and if we have sources that do so, state it may be incorrect. FunkMonk (talk) 19:33, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll add it back soon with the caveat that these are only suggestions, since no one is coming back on this. FunkMonk (talk) 21:24, 9 March 2021 (UTC)