The two Cape hake species of the southern Benguela ecosystem, the shallow-waterand deep-water hakes Merluccius capensis and M. paradoxus, are economically themost important marine resources in South Africa. Recruitment is a key process inthe dynamics of marine organisms, yet very little is known about the early lifehistory of Cape hakes, especially the location of spawning grounds and transportof eggs and larvae. For each species, ichthyoplankton dispersal off South Africa issimulated by coupling oceanographic simulations to an individual-based model inorder to track virtual individuals. Results indicate that the most favorable spawningareas for transport to nursery areas are located off the south-western coast and theeastern Agulhas Bank, and highlight partly different drift routes followed by thetwo ichthyoplankton species off Cape Columbine. Transport from spawning tonursery areas is the highest in austral winter for a spawning depth rangingbetween 0 and 100 m. These modeling results are in broad agreement with avail-able knowledge on the ecology of Cape hakes. The present work on Cape hakescomplements previous modeling studies on anchovy and sardine in the same area.Taken together, these studies underline the correspondence between cross-shore(for hakes) or alongshore (for anchovy and sardine) transport mechanisms and thespawning strategies used by these key species of the southern Benguela ecosystem.KEYWORDS: Merluccius spp.; Southern Benguela; larval dispersal; modeling