What are fire corals? Well, they’re not true corals, although their talent for stinging certainly lives up to the fire part of its name. The tiny animals behind them are hydrocorals, hydroids that build calcium carbonate dwellings. They’re closer to jellyfishes than to the stony corals they sort of resemble. THE FIRST THING TO SAY ABOUT FIRE CORALS IS A WARNING: THEY LOOK TOTALLY INNOCENT. But touching them, presumably accidently, has caused many a diver
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True soft corals are among the most beautiful gems of the reef, yet they’re difficult to get a handle on etymologically. People insist on calling other stuff, like sea fans and mushroom corals, “soft corals.” Species in Family Nephtheidae deserve to be appreciated and understood by themselves. TRUE SOFT CORALS ARE BEAUTEOUS TO BEHOLD AND DIFFICULT TO DEFINE. They’re beautiful in their delicate multi-branched structures, feathery clusters of polyps and striking pastel reds, yellows, blues,
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With grape-sized, sac-like membranes, bubble corals look soft, squishy and egg-like from the outside. But underneath, Plerogyra sinuosa and its like are hard, stony corals. Although they’re popular with home aquarium enthusiasts, it’s somewhat of a find to spot bubble coral on the reef. WHEN YOU COME ACROSS CLUSTERS OF BUBBLE CORAL, at first glance you might take them for large fish eggs, or perhaps errant egg clutches of some animal, say a cephalopod. Once
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BLACK CORALS ARE PROBABLY BEST KNOWN AS SHINY, JET BLACK JEWELRY. As living coral in their underwater habitats, they’re actually unlikely to be black. So what does black coral look like, actually? They’re most likely to be found in shades of soft reds, greens, yellows and other colors. They’re not stony corals – they grow in complex linear structures resembling trees, bushes or sea fans. The “black” part is the protein-based chitin that comprises the
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WHEN PEOPLE SEE THE WORD “CORAL,” it very likely brings to mind the great mounds of star and brain corals that stand out on the reefs. In fact, “corals” include many organisms beyond the familiar stony formations, all built on similar, tiny, coral polyps. “Coral” itself is a flexible word. It applies to the coral exoskeletons that we see as the visible shells of hard corals, to the polyp animals that live within those exoskeletons
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CORALS’ ABILITY TO GLOW WITH FLUORESCENT LIGHT has been known for some time. The understanding with shallow water corals has been that fluorescent proteins absorb harmful ultraviolet rays, protecting the zooxanthellae algae that provide them with significant nutrition through photosynthesis (See “Corals’ Colors Are More Than Just Eye Candy”). IN DEEP WATERS, A DIFFERENT STRATEGY Now scientists have found that corals in deep waters, which receive very little solar energy, use different colors for a
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NOBODY GOES TO THE TROPICS TO SEE GORGONIANS. The sea fans, sea plumes, sea rods and sea whips that make up Order Gorgonacea are just there, incidental bystanders on the “real” reefs of beautiful, stony corals. Sometimes, they’re in the way. While none of the 500 or so species of fans, plumes, rods or whips can compare to the exquisite beauty that hard corals achieve (although some sea fans make a good effort), they’re part
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THE EVIDENCE IS CLEAR: THE MOST COMMON CHEMICALS FOUND IN SUNSCREENS, OXYBENZONE AND OCTINOXATE, are damaging to coral reefs and contribute to coral bleaching. The city of Key West in Florida has just joined the state of Hawaii in voting to ban the sale of coral-toxic sunscreens. At stake is the health of their fragile reefs and, obviously, their futures as destinations for millions of divers and other tourists. They’d like to see reef-safe sunscreen
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A NEWLY DISCOVERED CORAL REEF off the U.S.’s mid-Atlantic coast stretches for some 85 miles, dense with stony Lophelia pertusa, a branching deep-sea, cold-water coral. A half-mile below the ocean surface, the “new” reef has “mountains” of coral, according to researchers. It’s situated about 160 miles off Charleston, S.C. DEEP SEARCH – A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY The newly discovered coral reef was identified by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies as
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AT FIRST PASS, “CORALS EATING JELLYFISH” SOUNDS LIKE AN OXYMORON. But newly published research confirms that for at least one variety of stony corals, the concept of corals eating jellyfish is indeed a reality. Moreover, these tiny colonial animals appear to work together to capture and devour the much larger jellies. It’s the first described case of “protocooperation” among corals, say the authors of the article published in the journal Ecology. NORMALLY CARNIVORES, ANYWAY Coral polyps
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