An intensely beautiful and fragile Gorgonhead basket star filters plankton from the water column on a deep reef of False Bay, Cape Town. Astrocladus euryale is found on False Bay’s shallower reefs, especially on sinous seafans on rocky outcrops where they perch unfurling their arms of thousands of branches into the current to feed. When disturbed, they curl into tight balls, transforming from delicate lacework filterfeeders to armored knots.