What is coral ?
What is coral?
Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?
While corals may look like reefs and share many characteristics of plants, they are actually animals. To be precise they are aquatic marine invertebrates (known as polyps) that live in warm shallows of clear coastal waters located around the world.
A large number of marine organisms make their home among the corals, making them the most abundant and diverse habitat on Earth. Because the nutrients that the plankton needs to feed on are better dissolved in deep, cold water, warmer layers become less attractive places to capture large numbers of floating plankton. Therefore, the upper shallows remain warm and clear - ideal living conditions for micro-algae, who use sunlight to combine carbon dioxide and water to create their own food source, which they use with their coral Share.
Corals remain in partnership with single-celled Zooxanthella algae, which are also responsible for the bright colors. If the algae die, the coral will turn white, a harmful effect called coral bleaching. As such, jellyfish corals are cididarians, except that they are contained on the spot by a tube attached to a surface (usually rock), rather than swimming freely like jellyfish. Cnidarians have a simple body, with a central mouth opening, surrounded by a stinging tentacle. The coral polyp is a soft-bodied organism that is made up of single-celled algae and lives within a large community of similar polyps called colony. They use calcium and a variety of other minerals in seawater - along with the food waste they produce - to build their own protective calcium carbonate skeletal shelters.
When the coral dies, the remains of a rigid, chocolate skeleton are left behind and new polyp will develop on top of these. The coral skeleton is formed of sedimentary limestone when compressed over several thousands of years. Over hundreds of thousands of years, a colony of polyps can grow extensively with other colonies to join a larger colony.
A large number of marine organisms make their home among the corals, making them the most abundant and diverse habitat on Earth. Because the nutrients that the plankton needs to feed on are better dissolved in deep, cold water, warmer layers become less attractive places to capture large numbers of floating plankton. Therefore, the upper shallows remain warm and clear - ideal living conditions for micro-algae, who use sunlight to combine carbon dioxide and water to create their own food source, which they use with their coral Share.
Corals remain in partnership with single-celled Zooxanthella algae, which are also responsible for the bright colors. If the algae die, the coral will turn white, a harmful effect called coral bleaching. As such, jellyfish corals are cididarians, except that they are contained on the spot by a tube attached to a surface (usually rock), rather than swimming freely like jellyfish. Cnidarians have a simple body, with a central mouth opening, surrounded by a stinging tentacle. The coral polyp is a soft-bodied organism that is made up of single-celled algae and lives within a large community of similar polyps called colony. They use calcium and a variety of other minerals in seawater - along with the food waste they produce - to build their own protective calcium carbonate skeletal shelters.
When the coral dies, the remains of a rigid, chocolate skeleton are left behind and new polyp will develop on top of these. The coral skeleton is formed of sedimentary limestone when compressed over several thousands of years. Over hundreds of thousands of years, a colony of polyps can grow extensively with other colonies to join a larger colony.
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