. >> it started when a local taxidermist thought it might be feasible to rebreed, using living plain zebra animals by choosing some of the lesser striped ones. >> reporter: eric harley has been working for 25 years on a project to restore this animal back to life, by breeding it back from its most common an sesor. how is that possible? researchers say it hinges on the notion that it's not a separate species, merely, a sub species of plain zebra. >> and it also means that the genes may still be there in the current living population of plain zebra, but in dliluted form. and we can get back animals showing the full appearance of the original. >> reporter: dr. fleischer had studied all from around the world. >> they might actually have been a distinct specie. the science is a little bit muddies so far. >> reporter: or is it? dr. harley and his team say they have been successful, they've done it. they've restored the animal from the dead. >> i think people get really excited, because, here is an example of where anal ma is thought to be extinct and we managed to bring it back again. >> r

. >> it started when a local taxidermist thought it might be feasible to rebreed the quaha using livingplain zebra animals by choosing lesser striped ones. >> reporter: this doctor studied ancient quaha dna from museums around the world. >> they may have been isolated a couple hundred thousand years. they might have been an extinct species. the taxonomy is still muddy. >> reporter: or is it? after four generations of breeding, dr. harley and his team say they have been successful. they have done it. they have restored the quaha from the dead. >> it is simple to retrieve or restore an animal with the physical appearance at least of the original quaha, since there is no reason to suppose the quaha had any specific adaptations, there is no need to suppose if we get an animal back that looks like it we are that looks like it we are not reasonably justified in calling it the quaha. >> if you took a vw car, you removed the body and replaced it with a porsche body, well you still have a vw functionally. >> reporter: does that say we dismiss what is going on here? or is there some significance