Pop star Shakira was attacked by a sea lion in South Africa's Cape Town while she was taking pictures of "cute" creatures with her mobile phone, British tabloid The Sun reported on Tuesday. Colombian-born Shakira wrote in her Twitter that when she went to watch the seals and sea lions while on tour in South Africa she decided to move closer than all of the other tourists and went down to a rock. “Suddenly, one jumped out of the water so fast that it got about one foot away from me, looked me in the eye, roared in fury and tried to bite me,” the 35-year-old singer was quoted as saying. The animal sent her and other tourists screaming and paralyzed her with so much fear that she could not move. It was her brother, Tony, who jumped to her rescue and took Shakira away from the sea lion. “We both got our hands and legs scratched by the rocks while trying to protect ourselves,” she said. Shakira believes that it was her mobile phone that angered the sea lion and provoked the attack. “I believe it confused the reflection of the BlackBerry phone I was taking pics with, with some sort of fish. It thought I was teasing it with food,” she said adding that she next went to see the penguins who are “definitely friendlier.”