 There has been much debate over the status of the quagga in relation to the plains zebra . It is poorly represented in the fossil record , and the identification of these fossils is uncertain , as they were collected at a time when the name quagga referred to all zebras . Fossil skulls of Equus <unk> from Algeria have been claimed to show affinities with the quagga and the plains zebra , but they may be too badly damaged to allow definite conclusions to be drawn from them . Quaggas have also been identified in cave art attributed to the San . Reginald Innes Pocock was perhaps the first to suggest that the quagga was a subspecies of plains zebra in 1902 . As the quagga was scientifically described and named before the plains zebra , the trinomial name for the quagga becomes E. quagga quagga under this scheme , and the other subspecies of plains zebra are placed under E. quagga as well . 
