Hundreds of years ago, when the Cape was part of the super-continent geologists call Gondwana, the feature that is now Table Mountain was a flat empty plain. As the vast land mass shifted and heaved, the plain slowly subsided under the sea. For 50 million years fine sediment built up, layer after layer. Then the earth's plates buckled again and the layers of sedimet were thrust upwards, first as an island and then, as the glaciers of the ice age tore and carved the solid mass, as what we now as Table Mountain, Devil's Peak and Lions Head. The layers of ancient submarine sediment can still be seen as horizontal lines across the face of the mountain.

More recently, the mountain and surrounding areas were the home of a rich variety of wild animals. Lions roamed the mountains, hippos wallowed in the swampy areas on the flats beneath the mountain. Most of the larger animals of Africa were found here, with one possible exception: the low fynbos vegetation was too short for giraffes.

Today almost all the wild animals have disappeared as man encroached on their habitat. Only the smaller ones remain on the mountain- the little grysbock, porcupines, tortoises and the ubiquitous dassies, or rock rabbits.

An interesting addition to the mountain fauna is the Himalayan tahr. A pair of these animals, originally from the Himalayan mountains in northern India, escaped from the Groote Schuur Estate zoo in the 1930s and settled happily on Table Mountain. There are now hundreds of these shy, goat-like animals living on the mountain.