Flow designed and developed websites for South Africa’s top aquariums, uShaka Sea World in Durban and the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town.
During the course of site maintenance for our marine-orientated clients we have come to know a great deal about dolphins, seals, penguins, sharks and snakes, but there are also many fascinating, lesser-known animals.
Let’s show you some of those found at uShaka Sea World, the largest aquarium in the southern hemisphere:
The nautilus represents the only surviving member of the subclass Nautiloidea. It is often referred to as a living fossil because it has remained unchanged over millennia.
Almost all pufferfish contain tetrodotoxin, a substance that makes them foul-tasting and lethal to fish. Tetrodotoxin is also deadly to humans and considered 1 200 times more poisonous than cyanide.
The bowmouth guitarfish is a species of ray that derives its name partly from the shape of its body, which resembles a guitar, and partly from the shape of its mouth, which features wavy lines reminiscent of a longbow.
The robust jawfish lives in a burrow that it excavates with its large mouth, scattering sand and pebbles around the entrance. The vertical shaft of the burrow connects to a lower chamber into which the fish can retreat when threatened by a predator.
You can see many of South Africa's cold-water species at the Two Oceans Aquarium on the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, or visit Durban's beachfront where you'll find uShaka Sea World.
Devil firefish (Pterois miles) have distinctive red-brown stripes and delicate fins that they waft gently to move around in their reef habitat. Their dorsal fins are poisonous.
