collect information about corals
Answers
Answer:
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically live in compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Corals species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.
Explanation:
example Sea pens are colonial marine cnidarians belonging to the order Pennatulacea. There are 14 families within the order; 35 extant genera, and it is estimated that of 450 described species, around 200 are valid.
Answer:
Explanation:
Corals are small, sedentary marine animals that occur in dense colonies in warm shallow waters of oceans. Reef-building corals are scattered throughout the tropical and subtropical western Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans, generally between 30 degrees North and 30 degrees South latitudes.
Coral reefs are formed by the skeleton remains of many generations of stony corals. Massive reef structures are built over thousands of years by tiny coral polyps aided by minute algae (zooxanthellae) that live in their tissues, calcifying algae, and other organisms that secrete calcium carbonate and adhesives. Reef- building corals are generally found at depths of less than 46 m, where there is sunlight and clear water through which the sunlight penetrates better. Reef-building corals, along with the algae, require warm ocean temperatures (20–28° C) and are therefore found along the eastern shores of major land masses where the water is warmer. These reefs are amongst the earth’s oldest living communities of plants and animals. They vary in shape, size and colour.