The world’s rarest skeleton stands on four legs once again

Using cutting-edge technology, the world's rarest skeleton - a South African extinct zebra called a quagga - has regained its missing hind limb. The Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL is nearing the end of a major project to restore 39 of their largest and most significant skeletons to their former glory. The main focus of the project, named Bone Idols: Protecting our Iconic Skeletons , has been the Museum's quagga specimen - which is one of only seven quagga skeletons to survive globally. The last living quagga died in 1883, having been hunted to extinction by farmers and skin-collectors. The Grant Museum specimen is the only one on display in the UK but the skeleton was incomplete with one of its legs missing since World War II. Specialist skeleton conservator Nigel Larkin worked with Dr Laura Porro and Professor Renate Weller at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) to scan the quagga's one remaining right hind leg in a CT machine, who then created a precise mirror-image of the resulting data, perfectly replicating the missing left leg on the screen. This computer image was then modelled in solid nylon using a 3D-printer at the Bartlett Manufacturing and Design Exchange (B-made) at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, to recreate the bones of a long extinct species for the Museum.