The two most noticeable characteristics of the quagga, fewer stripes and a darker pelage, are frequently observed to varying degrees in wild plains zebra populations. Animals with these two traits have been sought out for the Quagga Project breeding programme. In its fourth breeding iteration, the Quagga Project has resulted in foals displaying faint to absent striping on the hind legs and body, although the brown background color of the extinct quagga has yet to emerge. These animals have been referred to as "Rau quaggas", after the project founder Reinhold Rau. The project has been criticized for its focus on the morphological characteristics of the quagga, as the extinct animal may have possessed unrecorded behavioral or non-visible traits that would be impossible to reliably breed back from plains zebras. Although the wolf, the wild ancestor of domestic dogs, is not extinct, its phenotype is the target of several developmental breeds including the Northern Inuit Dog and the Tamaskan Dog. They are all crossbreeds of German Shepherds, Alaskan Malamutes and huskies, selected for phenotypic wolf characteristics. These new breeds may be viewed as breeding-back attempts as well. Although extinct, Japanese wolf DNA survives in the modern domestic Shikoku Inu. It is thought that crossing this breed with some subspecies of Asian wolves would result in an authentic analogue to fill the ecological niche left empty in the absence of this apex predator. The Dire Wolf Project, started in 1988, aims to bring back the look of the extinct prehistoric dire wolf by breeding different domestic dog breeds that resemble it.