BACKGROUNDCoral (Marine organism living in colony) Reef (ridge)
Coral reefs contain some of the largest diversity of life in the world. They are home to thousands of different plants and animals. For example, coral reefs in the Florida Keys sustain 500 species of fish, more than 1700 species of mollusks, five species of sea turtles, and hundreds of species of sponges.
Coral reefs are typically found at a depth of marine waters less than 150 feet so that they are reachable by sunlight. Corals contain microscopic algae called zooxanthellae that provide the coral with food and give them their vibrant colors and grow on average about 1 mm to 4 cm per year.
Coral reefs are made up of primitive animals related to jellyfish. Each individual coral is a tiny polyp, a very simple organism consisting mostly of a stomach topped by a tentacle-bearing mouth and is surrounded by a calcium carbonate exoskeleton that it secretes. Thousands of these identical polyps live together, each embedded in the calcium carbonate exoskeleton, which over long periods of time forms the structure of the reef. The coral animals use their tentacles to sting and ingest plankton and other small creatures.
EXTRAORDINARY
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