Reinhold Rau

Reinhold Rau (February 7, 1932 - February 11, 2006) was a well-known South African natural historian. He was born near Frankfurt, Germany. He was trained as a fossil preparator at Senckenberg Museum and joined the South African Museum in 1951.

In 1969, he re-mounted the quagga foal, the only extant specimen in southern African museum collections. Dried tissue samples from the foal's skin, together with additional tissue samples from the two Mainz quaggas that he re-mounted in 1980/81, formed the basis of the DNA analyses that led to the discovery that the Quagga was a subspecies of the Plains Zebra, not a distinct species. Rau was the pioneer and founder of the Quagga Project, an attempt to re-breed the extinct Quagga. In 2000, the Cape Tercentenary Foundation awarded him the Molteno Medal for lifetime services to nature conservation in the Cape. His quest to rebreed the Quagga is said to have provided the inspiration for the film Jurassic Park.

Reinhold Rau died on February 11, 2006 at age 73.

His name, after his death in February 2006, can be seen in memory on the "End Credits" scene, as a dedication for the 2013 film Khumba.

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