This species is usually taken on muddy bottoms on the continental shelves and slopes at depths from 88-675 m. This species has its females maturing at 320-330 mm totall length (TL) (Fernholm 1981). According to Villanueva (1993), Myxine capensis accounted for 14.4% of the diet of 90 specimens of Octopus magnificus (Cephalopoda) caught off Namibia and South Africa; prey ranging in size from 21-31.5 cm TL.

This species burrows in muddy bottoms (Bianchi et al. 1993). It feeds mostly by scavenging on dead or disabled fish (Bianchi et al. 1993). The copulatory organ is absent for this species. The gonads of hagfishes are situated in the peritoneal cavity. The ovary is found in the anterior portion of the gonad, and the testis is found in the posterior part. The animal becomes female if the cranial part of the gonad develops or male if the caudal part undergoes differentiation. If none develops, then the animal becomes sterile. If both anterior and posterior parts develop, then the animal becomes a functional hermaphrodite. However, hermaphroditism being characterised as functional needs to be validated by more reproduction studies (Patzner 1998).