10. What is coral, a plant or an
animal?
A coral is made of tiny little carnivorous
(meat eating) animals called polyps.
These polyps live in colonies.
Each polyp forms a little limestone case
around it.
Coral reefs are made up of thousands of
limestone cases around it.
11. Coral Reef- The coral is made up of tiny stinging
cells. When an animal swims past this and brushes
up against it, it kills the animal.
22. Coral reefs have different shapes, this is
determined by their environment and wave action.
23. As many as 200 kinds of fish can live in a coral reef. They
range in size from 10mm to 20 meters long. Food for little
fish is supplied there which attracts larger fish.
26. So much life in the tropics depend on coral reefs.
27. It is related to the jelly fish. A coral polyp is the size
of a pearl. It is like a mouth with tentacles stuck to it.
These coral live in colonies.
33. Coral Bleaching
Is caused from the water being too warm, too
low of tide, pH changes are a few reasons.
Global Warming causes the reefs to bleach
and die out.
It results in the coral turning white and is a
sign of the coral being stressed.
This can result in the coral dying.
34. Variety of Fish
Why is coral dying important?
Nearly all life in shallow tropical beaches depend on
coral.
If the reefs die out , the fish die out.
Fish diversity dies out as well as the number of fish.
35. Here are some different kinds of fish
encountered while we were snorkeling.
37. Parrot fish are one of the few fish that
eat coral. What they excrete is partly
sand.