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Starfish have five arms, each with its own set of respiratory, digestive and reproductive organs!

Each arm also has hundreds of tiny tubefeet that enable the starfish to creep slowly over the reef.

Don’t worry if you see a starfish with only four or even three arms. Starfish can regrow their arms – in fact a single arm can regenerate a whole body!

Feeding inside out

The mouth is on the underside and the anus on the topside.

Starfish feed by turning their stomachs inside out and releasing enzymes to digest the food externally. It can take a starfish several hours to pull a mussel apart and slowly digest it.

These creatures are common on the rocky shores of the Western Cape.

They are either orange or blue-grey in colour. The spines are surrounded by a circle of tiny white nippers that are used for defence and to keep the starfish clean.

Honeycomb moray eels are widespread throughout the world, from the eastern coast of Africa to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

These “flat frogs” live in natural water-bodies, but you might see them in your garden pond. They also don’t mind living in the local sewerage works. At the end of the rainy season, they bury themselves under wet mud, where they hibernate until the next rains.

Also known as African clawed frogs, these “flat frogs” have powerful back legs and sharp claws on three of their toes. They hold prey in their mouths and tear it with an overhead “kick” by their back legs.

Common platannas feed in the water on any living creatures they can overpower. Their prey includes frogs and tadpoles (including their own kind), insects and other invertebrates (mosquito larvae are consumed by young frogs), small fish, young birds and mice that fall into the water. They even feed on carrion in the water.

In the 1930s, it was discovered that a female common platanna would spawn if injected with the urine of a pregnant woman (the hormone chorionic gonadotropin being the active ingredient). In the 1940s and ‘50s, this was the only available pregnancy test and many hospitals around the world kept and bred platannas so that they could perform such tests.

The Western leopard toad uses camouflage to blend into its environment and hide from predators. The Western Cape is the only place in the world where you will find Western leopard toads. They live in natural vegetation, on farms and in compost heaps in gardens, but move to water, especially wetlands, to mate and lay their eggs. Keep your eyes open for Western leopard toads on the roads particularly in August when they are breeding and in November when the young toads are making their way from the water to land. Please brake for the toads!

Rockhopper penguins are the smallest of the crested penguin species. They live on rocky, inaccessible coasts and are renowned for their jumping ability.

Anemones are simple animals that look like delicate flowers. But these “flowers” can move and catch prey.

Anemones have poisonous barbs in their tentacles that fire on contact, injecting poison into their prey.

To protect themselves, anemones secrete a special slime that prevents the stinging cells on one tentacle from firing when they come into contact with other tentacles or with the anemone’s body.

According to Two Oceans: A guide to the Marine Life of Southern Africa (Struik, 2007), the common octopus lives at depths of up to 200m and feeds on crabs, shellfish and rock lobsters. It lives in crevices and holes and is fiercely territorial.

Giant kob (previously known as dusky kob) are found in estuaries and on rocky reefs and sandy bottoms from southern Mozambique to False Bay. They are also found off the coasts of Australia, Japan, Pakistan and India.

Some sharks are ahead of the trend when it comes to comfort—living in their pyjamas! Meet the pyjama catshark, a nocturnal creature that spends most of the day lounging in caves or crevices, catching some z's. And with those signature pyjama stripes; it’s no wonder they’re all about napping in style!