Aside from being fun to say, the Bontebok is also really fun to look at. With a brown and white coat and spiraled horns, these animals don’t look like your typical antelope. But their uniqueness was nearly their downfall. Bontebok almost went extinct in the 1930s, when there were roughly 17 left. Thankfully, these few were protected, and now there are approximately 3,000 Bonteboks alive today. Unlike most antelopes, the Bontebok is a terrible jumper but exceptional at crawling under things!

You may have to look really closely to see these tiny little fellas. Still, they’re all over South Africa, and these shrews serve a unique role in the ecosystem. You may have heard about insects being pollinators, meaning they carry pollen from flower to flower to help keep the plants healthy and growing. Well, the Cape Elephant Shrew does the same thing with its exceptionally long tongue. That’s how it got its name! Just like elephants, this cute critter has a long snout, or trunk, where the tongue lives. You can find them in rocky areas, where plants and flowers grow.

The Black Wildebeest is a big animal, reaching up to 400 pounds! These creatures gather in herds of up to 60 to protect themselves from African predators, like lions and cheetahs. To up their defenses even more, Black Wildebeests can run up to 50 miles an hour. That's about as fast as a car on a highway! While they look similar to other wildebeests, the Black Wildebeest is unique in that it has a long, bushy white tail, not unlike a horse. So they’re hard to miss!

This lizard is a scrappy little guy. If you were to threaten one, it'd do something incredibly unusual. It would take its tail into its mouth and form a ring, letting its rock-hard scales protect it from all predators. Another unique characteristic is how they care for their young. The mother Armadillo Girdled Lizards will sometimes feed her offspring as mother birds do! You might have difficulty finding them, though, as they prefer to stick to shaded crevasses and caves where they can chow down on insects, particularly termites. Given the large amounts of termites available in South Africa, these lizards stick together, gathering in groups of up to 60!

The adorable Riverine Rabbit is a remarkably fuzzy rabbit, with soft fur covering everything, from head to toe. It is found in the Karoo Desert and comes out at night, so bring your flashlights when you go looking for them. They are solitary creatures, and like to hop about the desert alone rather than in groups. And do you want to hear something crazy? Just like other rabbits, the Riverine Rabbit eats its own poo! It may sound gross, but it keeps them nice and strong thanks to the high vitamin content.

These shy little reptiles are a joy to look at, even though they are so small. They are 15 centimeters at most, so you may have to get really close to see the beautiful designs on their shells. But you won’t have to look long to understand how they got their name. Their backs look like a planetarium of stars and stripes, fitting together to form a beautiful pattern. The tortoise loves to munch on plants and goes shopping for snacks in the cooler parts of the day. Once thought to be extinct, these little tortoises are now on the road to recovery thanks to conservation efforts.

You’re probably familiar with the penguins that slip and slide around the Arctic on their bellies, but did you know South Africa is home to penguins? African penguins are flightless, just like other penguins. They are also very social and can be pretty noisy when they chat with each other. These birds are gifted hunters. They can dive up to 400 feet into the ocean and hold their breath for over two minutes in search of fish and squids. African penguins are a monogamous bunch, meaning that when two penguins mate, they stick together and return to the same place every year to keep the colony growing. Isn’t that romantic?

The adorable caracal is hard to spot in the wild due to its excellent survival instincts. Caracals, meaning “black eared” in Turkish, live all over Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. However, South Africa is home to a particularly unique group that hunts, unlike any other wild cats. Their diet consists heavily of seafood. That’s right! These coastal caracals have found life by the sea preferable to competing with bigger cats inland, so they peruse the beach, searching for seabirds to feed upon. And to make hunting even easier, these incredible predators can jump upwards of 10 feet in the air and snag birds mid-flight!