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Shortspined porcupinefish resemble a stereotypical "puffer fish" that most people can visualise - they have compact, boxy bodies, covered in scales that have been modified into short spines that can stand erect when the porcupinefish inflate their bodies and point backward at other times. Their spines are noticeably shorter on their heads, and completely absent from their tail peduncle. Their colouration is characteristic of the species; they have white bellies and like yellow-brown bodies. Dark brown or black bands run from below their eyes and under their heads, as well as a second set of bars just in front of their pectoral fins.Then threatened, shortspined porcupinefish can inflate their bodies to make themselves appear larger, and to help erect their spines as a further defence. They inflate their bodies by rapidly swallowing large amounts of water.In addition to their spines and thick skin, the flesh of the shortspined porcupinefish is also poisonous. Their toxin is called tetrodotoxin which is produced by symbiotic bacteria that live inside the fish. Tetrodotoxin is a neurotoxin that is deadly to humans - in fact, it is estimated to be 25x more toxic than cyanide to mammals.Unlike most other fish, porcupinefish lack anal fins.Their teeth are fused together into a beak-like mouth which they typically keep open to that they can react quickly if they are attacked and need to swell up by swallowing water. Their beaks help them to feed on hard-shelled prey, such as crustaceans and molluscs. Their genus name, Diodon, refers to their beaked mouth, literally meaning "two teeth" in Greek.Shortspined porcupinefish inhabit tropical and subtropical waters throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans and on the Atlantic coast of South Africa. They are common on coral reefs, rocky reefs and shallow lagoons, ranging to a maximum depth of about 90m. In these habitats, they typically hide in caves or the shade of corals during the day and come out at night to feed.

Basket stars are brittle stars, close relatives of starfish you might be more familiar with.They have ten arms which each branch multiple times into progressively finer and more delicate tendrils. They are typically a dull blue-grey with dark stripes on their arms and small, black-ringed knobs on their central disc. They can grow very large, reaching over half a metre across.Basket stars typically anchor their central disc onto sea fans or other tall corals situated high up in reefs, and hold their arms outstretched to catch passing prey. The fine tendrils on their arms can interlock, forming a basket-like trap.When not feeding, basket stars can pull their tendrils and arms towards their central disk for protection.They are found only on the South African coast, from the Cape Peninsula to Algoa Bay.

Clarke's clownfish are small, orange-black fish with three distinct vertical stripes - one separating the head from the gill cover, one across the fish's posterior, behind their first dorsal fin and one on the peduncle, separating the dark body from the yellow tail. Their snouts are usually orange or pink.These colours vary regionally - in fact, Clarke's clownfish have the greatest colour variation of any clownfish species. For example, ones inhabiting dark anemones tend to be almost completely black, ones from Vanuatu are yellow with only two stripes and, in some groups, the males' yellow tail fins turn white if they undergo a sex-change.Clarke's clownfish have the furthest reaching distribution of any clownfish; they are found throughout the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean, most commonly in the Persian Gulf, west Australian coast, Indonesia, Micronesia, Taiwan and Japan.These clownfish live on coral reefs, in lagoons and on steep rocky reefs no deeper than 60m.Like most clownfish, Clarke's clownfish are immune to the stings of sea anemone tentacles and live amongst these tentacles for protection. The anemones benefit from this symbiotic relationship is protection from small predators and food scraps from the clownfish. There are 10 species of sea anemone known to host clownfish, and Clarke's clownfish have been found to exploit all of them.Clarke's clownfish are omnivores and opportunistically feed on dead anemone tentacles, food scraps, small crustaceans, small fish, zooplankton and algae.Within a group of Clarke's clownfish, a dominance hierarchy is present. All clownfish in a group are male hermaphrodites, except the largest who undergoes a change into a female.

Lined wrasses are orange-brown in colour with pale longitudinal blue-green lines. Their heads have irregular light blue-green lines.They have opercular flaps with black spots and caudal fins with broad black bars on the posterior part of the fin. Females are distinguished by the white versus yellow band on the base of the tail and males by the lined versus spotted pattern on the body.Lined wrasses inhabit coastal slopes and drop-off areas in small groups and can be found at depths between 20-45m.

The Picasso triggerfish is a robust, grey fish with a unique, notable pattern of stripes giving it the distinct appearance of a painters colour palette - hence its name after the famous painter Pablo Picasso. It's Hawaiian name, humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa, literally means "pig-snouted triggerfish."This pattern has a number of unique elements, that make identifying the Picasso triggerfish easy:

Red tjor-tjor are small pink fish of the porgy family that develop rows of reflective blue dots along their flanks as they mature.Their small mouths are equipped with several sharp incisors and two rows of molars, which they use for hunting small, bottom-dwelling invertebrates, such as echinoderms and polychaetes, and small fish, which they can dive up to 250m to find.Tjor-tjor are native to the Western Indian Ocean around South Africa, Madagascar and Mozambique, where they form schools in deep, sandy bays. Here they form an important prey animal for a large number of other species.Spawning season occurs in spring along the KwaZulu-Natal coast near the continental shelf. Larval red tjor-tjor drift as plankton in these waters or sink below the continental shelf to depths of up to 2km. Juvenile tjor-tjor are commonly found taking refuge in shallow bays on the coast of Southern Africa, with the highest abundance observed near Mossel Bay.

The smooth flutemouth is a very elongated fish that has a long filament projecting from its forked tail fin. The filament is lined with sensory pores, and may serve as a long-range sensory system for detecting prey.As a solitary, stealthy predator, the smooth flutemouth blends into the background and approaches its prey head-on. It eats by extending its jaws and engulfing live prey, particularly small fish, crustaceans and squid.It can be found widely in Indo-Pacific regions along shallow, rocky reefs and in the Mediterranean Sea and European waters as an invasive species. In its native waters, it is common on the African east coast, Red Sea and around Pacific islands such as Easter Island, Hawaii, Japan and New Zealand.

The bignose unicorn is a large member of the surgeonfish family and, although it is a unicornfish, it does not have the characteristic "horn" seen in many other species. Adults are a deep magenta-grey colour with small vertical blue bars on their sides, small blue spots near their belly and a characteristic, thick blue bar from eye to snout. Juvenile bignose unicorns are a dull yellow-green, with small blue spots and blue lips. They develop their hues of magenta and purple as they mature. This fish is capable of changing it's colour for camouflage and will turn grey-brown when threatened or when resting. The bignose unicorn has a wide range throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans, ranging from the KwaZulu-Natal coast to Japan, the Great Barrier Reef and the Galapagos Islands. Its preferred habitat is deep lagoons and the seaward margins of coral reefs, where they sometimes gather into large groups to feed on small zooplankton, particularly copepods. However, they are mostly solitary and feed on algae growing on the reef.