beauty of the underwater world attracts unusual shapes and colors exotic inhabitants and plants.Coral reefs can be likened to a fairy tale, full of delightful treasures and fantastic characters.They are often compared with a garden full of colorful flowers, only instead of singing birds are fish that are unfamiliar to the human eye shapes and decorated with such figures, which is rarely seen on land.Corals bright colors - from bright pink and iridescent aquamarine to deep black - attracted unusual shape and resistance to the destructive power of the ocean.Black coral is one of the most fragile and due to the increased interest of man, one of the endangered species.In the scientific world assumed that the outlandish beauty adorns the Earth more than 500 million years.
Nature coral reefs
When we look at the question "What is the coral" you can find the information that this term refers to a living organism - a polyp and then cementing substance, which he identifies, in appearance resembling a plant.Polyps belong to the same class as the jellyfish - cnidarians, feed on plankton and are found throughout the world's oceans.However, the ability to build a grandiose shapes and sizes, they have only reefs in tropical waters where the temperature does not drop below 20 ° C.Corals are marine immobile lifestyle, is fixed to one place and allocating during the life of the sea water its main building material of the outer skeleton - calcium carbonate.
Unusual corals
What is the coral, called "sea fan"?When submerged in deep water reefs can see soft corals, which drive the ocean currents.Polyps, their generators build around themselves is not rocky and flexible skeletons.Sometimes they can form the shape of a fan, tendrils, resembling snakes or growing taller than a man, whips.Their tips are placed tentacles, which, opening, consume food for all members of the colony alive.
Another unusual type of coral - tubular and cup-shaped.It is he who gives the impression of a blooming garden on the sea floor.Multicolored "whisk dust" form polyps, the number of tentacles which are a multiple of eight.They have a large number of stinging cells.
Types of coral reefs
One of the most famous, thanks to its size and complexity of the structure, the coral reef is located in the northeast of Australia.It represents a kind of barrier, t. E. It is located at a considerable (sometimes tens of kilometers) away from the shore.Between them is a lagoon, as a rule, has a great depth.Often there are fringing reef species.They are located directly along the shore in shallow water.In the open space of the ocean can be found coral reefs ring-education - the atolls.They are of volcanic origin and can be converted into flourishing island.
Fauna coral reefs
living in coral reef organisms in their livelihoods are closely linked, form a complex ecosystem.Most of its members are so dependent on each other, that exist outside of their home can not, like the coral reef itself.What is a coral without oxygen, carbohydrates, continuous purification of waste products?It is not a living organism.This involved the algae that live in one of the layers of polyps.
What is coral for the inhabitants of the ocean?Around the reef there are more than 1,500 species of different sizes and shapes of fish.Favorable environment here for several species of whales.Most species of sea turtles prefer to coral islands to display their offspring, choosing it as the safest place.Not paid attention to the favorable places for food and a variety of seabirds.
