Smitten by a cute, furry face on Table Mountain: a dassie

Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA – Out of the fog, a dassie appeared.

Before June 29 at 1:22 pm, I didn’t know my life had a missing piece.

Then the clouds on Table Mountain parted just enough for a small, round creature to blink at me through the clearing light.

My first dassie. 

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Apparently that was all it took. One moment I was focused on the day’s itinerary; the next I was thinking about deep time, from the improbable edges of mammalian evolution, the persistence of life in varied environments, and everything in between.

If I had to compress nearly two weeks in Cape Town into a single symbol, the dassie wins without contest. Ask me anything:

I know how this sounds, but I can explain.

For those who are unacquainted, dassies (more formally, rock hyraxes) are small terrestrial mammals native to Africa and the Middle East.

The name comes from early Dutch settlers who described them as “dass,” or badgers. They have the disposition of an opinionated plush toy: stout bodies, rabbit-adjacent expressions, vampire-like front teeth, and rounded ears.

Their sturdy stature, short tails, and expressive faces immediately captured my heart. 

By far, they are the most abundant mammal on Table Mountain. They can also be found co-existing with penguins, squirrels, and birds.

Dassies also happen to be the closest living relatives of elephants and manatees. Learning that cemented their place as my new favorite animal.

Here was a creature I’d only known for 30 seconds, and suddenly a plaque about “The Dassie” along the trails at Table Mountain was informing me that I was witnessing the edge of a 60-million-year-old family tree.  

Though that alone would have earned my attention, the dassie in front of me obviously didn’t care about phylogenetics. He was content existing, unhurriedly peering over a stone wall at the passing crowds in his well-adapted skin.

And those adaptations are extraordinary.

Dassies thrive where larger mammals on the Cape Peninsula have dwindled. They form colonies of up to 80 and, though they may not appear athletic, can move between tree canopies, urban edges, and rocky cliffs hundreds of feet in the air.

Their soft, leathery footpads are kept moist by specialized sweat glands and act like natural climbing suction cups. They bask because they aren’t efficient thermoregulators, and they “heap” in layered piles at night as a communal solution to staying warm.

Their flattened ribcages allows them to disappear into cracks that look narrower than my hand. A nictitating membrane shields their eyes from the sun, helping them spot predators even when the light is harsh.

All of that evolutionary ingenuity is housed inside something that looks like a fuzzy potato. 

Once I knew to look for them, dassies were everywhere.

Colonies dotted the rocks on Table Mountain; 10 or more could appear in a single panoramic sweep when the fog lifted.

At Boulders Beach, they hopped through the foliage just feet from penguins. One afternoon, I even spotted a dassie perched high in a tree. Since I first encountered them on the cliffs of Table Mountain, this was initially an unexpected sight, but made sense once I learned how well those footpads grip bark.

Where other mammal populations declined around Cape Town in the face of habitat loss, dassies persisted. That resilience inspires me.

So yes, each time I spotted dassies throughout our travels in South Africa, I felt an unmistakable flicker of happiness. When I look at the plush dassie keychain I splurged on at the airport to take home with me, I still do.

Dassies were consistent reminders of fascinating evolutionary histories and inspiring self-assuredness playing out at viewpoints, fields, bus tours, and boardwalks. Wherever we went, it was probably possible to see a dassie, and I was overjoyed when we did. 

In all the brightness and fog of South Africa, the creature that defined it for me was the dassie. This small creature I learned about for the first time less than a year ago in the fog reminded me that nature has a talent for wonder.

Annamika Konkola is a Correspondent with Youth Journalism International from the United States. She wrote this article, contributed photos and made the recording, when she wasn’t swooning over dassies.

Shiara Naveen is a Senior Reporter with Youth Journalism International from the U.S. She contributed a photo to this article.

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