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Coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. A coral "group" is a colony of very many genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in height. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening. Each polyp excretes an exoskeleton near the base. Over many generations, the colony thus creates a skeleton characteristic of the species which can measure up to several meters in size. Individual colonies grow by asexual reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning: polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously overnight, often around a full moon. Fertilized eggs form planulae, a mobile early form of the coral polyp which, when matu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coral Reef
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Coral belongs to the class Anthozoa in the animal phylum Cnidaria, which includes sea anemones and jellyfish. Unlike sea anemones, corals secrete hard carbonate exoskeletons that support and protect the coral. Most reefs grow best in warm, shallow, clear, sunny and agitated water. Coral reefs first appeared 485 million years ago, at the dawn of the Early Ordovician, displacing the microbial and sponge reefs of the Cambrian. Sometimes called ''rainforests of the sea'', shallow coral reefs form some of Earth's most diverse ecosystems. They occupy less than 0.1% of the world's ocean area, about half the area of France, yet they provide a home for at least 25% of all marine species, including fish, mollusks, worms, crustaceans, echinode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coral Outcrop Flynn Reef
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. A coral "group" is a colony of very many genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in height. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening. Each polyp excretes an exoskeleton near the base. Over many generations, the colony thus creates a skeleton characteristic of the species which can measure up to several meters in size. Individual colonies grow by asexual reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning: polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously overnight, often around a full moon. Fertilized eggs form planulae, a mobile early form of the coral polyp which, when matu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antipatharia
Antipatharians, also known as black corals or thorn corals, are an order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ... of soft deep-water corals. These corals can be recognized by their jet-black or dark brown chitin skeletons, surrounded by the Polyp (zoology), polyps (part of coral that is alive). Antipatharians are a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan order, existing at nearly every location and depth, with the sole exception of brackish waters. However, they are most frequently found on continental slopes under deep. A black coral reproduces both Sexual reproduction, sexually and Asexual reproduction, asexually throughout its lifetime. Many black corals provide housing, shelter, food, and protection for other animals. Black corals were originally classified in the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scleractinia
Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mouth is fringed with tentacles. Although some species are solitary, most are colonial. The founding polyp settles and starts to secrete calcium carbonate to protect its soft body. Solitary corals can be as much as across but in colonial species the polyps are usually only a few millimetres in diameter. These polyps reproduce asexually by budding, but remain attached to each other, forming a multi-polyp colony of clones with a common skeleton, which may be up to several metres in diameter or height according to species. The shape and appearance of each coral colony depends not only on the species, but also on its location, depth, the amount of water movement and other factors. Many shallow-water corals contain symbiont unicellular organism ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthozoa
Anthozoa is a subphylum of marine invertebrates which includes the sea anemones, stony corals and soft corals. Adult anthozoans are almost all attached to the seabed, while their larvae can disperse as part of the plankton. The basic unit of the adult is the polyp; this consists of a cylindrical column topped by a disc with a central mouth surrounded by tentacles. Sea anemones are mostly solitary, but the majority of corals are colonial, being formed by the budding of new polyps from an original, founding individual. Colonies are strengthened by calcium carbonate and other materials and take various massive, plate-like, bushy or leafy forms. Anthozoa is included within the phylum Cnidaria, which also includes the jellyfish, box jellies and parasitic Myxozoa and Polypodiozoa. The two main subclasses of Anthozoa are the Hexacorallia, members of which have six-fold symmetry and includes the stony corals, sea anemones, tube anemones and zoanthids; and the Octocorallia, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cnidaria
Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in Fresh water, freshwater and Marine habitats, marine environments, predominantly the latter. Their distinguishing feature is cnidocytes, specialized cells that they use mainly for capturing prey. Their bodies consist of mesoglea, a non-living jelly-like substance, sandwiched between two layers of epithelium that are mostly one cell (biology), cell thick. Cnidarians mostly have two basic body forms: swimming Medusa (biology), medusae and Sessility (motility), sessile polyp (zoology), polyps, both of which are Symmetry (biology)#Radial symmetry, radially symmetrical with mouths surrounded by tentacles that bear cnidocytes. Both forms have a single Body orifice, orifice and body cavity that are used for digestion and respiration (physiology), respiration. Many cnidarian species produce Colony (biology), colonies that are single organisms composed of medusa-like or polyp (z ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alcyonacea
Alcyonacea, or soft corals, are an order of corals. In addition to the fleshy soft corals, the order Alcyonacea now contains all species previously known as "gorgonian corals", that produce a more or less hard skeleton, though quite different from "true" corals ( Scleractinia). These can be found in suborders Holaxonia, Scleraxonia, and Stolonifera. They are sessile colonial cnidarians that are found throughout the oceans of the world, especially in the deep sea, polar waters, tropics and subtropics. Common names for subsets of this order are sea fans and sea whips; others are similar to the sea pens of related order Pennatulacea. Individual tiny polyps form colonies that are normally erect, flattened, branching, and reminiscent of a fan. Others may be whiplike, bushy, or even encrusting. A colony can be several feet high and across, but only a few inches thick. They may be brightly coloured, often purple, red, or yellow. Photosynthetic gorgonians can be successfully kep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rugosa
The rugosa, also called the tetracorallia or horn coral, are an extinct order of solitary and colonial corals that were abundant in Middle Ordovician to Late Permian seas. Solitary rugosans (e.g., '' Caninia'', '' Lophophyllidium'', '' Neozaphrentis'', '' Streptelasma'') are often referred to as horn corals because of a unique horn-shaped chamber with a wrinkled, or rugose, wall. Some solitary rugosans reached nearly a meter in length. However, some species of rugose corals could form large colonies (e.g., '' Lithostrotion''). When radiating septa were present, they were usually in multiples of four, hence ''Tetracoralla'' in contrast to modern ''Hexacoralla'', colonial polyps generally with sixfold symmetry. Rugose corals have a skeleton made of calcite that is often fossilized. Like modern corals (Scleractinia), rugose corals were invariably benthic, living on the sea floor or in a reef-framework. Some symbiotic rugose corals were endobionts of Stromatoporoidea, especiall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyp (zoology)
A polyp in zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ... is one of two forms found in the phylum Cnidaria, the other being the medusa (biology), medusa. Polyps are roughly cylindrical in shape and elongated at the axis of the vase-shaped body. In solitary polyps, the aboral (opposite to oral) end is attached to the substrate (biology), substrate by means of a disc-like holdfast (biology), holdfast called a pedal disc, while in colony (biology), colonies of polyps it is connected to other polyps, either directly or indirectly. The oral end contains the mouth, and is surrounded by a circlet of tentacles. Classes In the class (biology), class Anthozoa, comprising the sea anemones and corals, the individual is always a polyp; in the class Hydrozoa, however, the indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spawn (biology)
Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, and the act of both sexes is called spawning. Most aquatic animals, except for aquatic mammals and reptiles, reproduce through the process of spawning. Spawn consists of the reproductive cells (gametes) of many aquatic animals, some of which will become fertilized and produce offspring. The process of spawning typically involves females releasing ova (unfertilized eggs) into the water, often in large quantities, while males simultaneously or sequentially release spermatozoa ( milt) to fertilize the eggs. Most fish reproduce by spawning, as do most other aquatic animals, including crustaceans such as crabs and shrimps, molluscs such as oysters and squid, echinoderms such as sea urchins and sea cucumbers, amphibians such as frogs and newts, aquatic insects such as mayflies and mosquitoes and corals, which are actuall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diploria Labyrinthiformis
''Diploria'' is a monotypic genus of massive reef building stony corals in the family Mussidae. It is represented by a single species, ''Diploria labyrinthiformis'', commonly known as grooved brain coral and is found in the western Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. It has a familiar, maze-like appearance. Description This species of reef-building coral has a hemispherical, brain-like shape with a brown, yellow, or grey colour. It has characteristic deep, interconnected double-valleys. These polyp-bearing valleys are each separated by grooved ambulacral ridges. There may be a difference in colour between the valleys and the grooves. ''Diploria labyrinthiformis'' can grow upward at a rate of approximately 3.5 millimeters per year, achieving about in diameter. During its planktonic larval stage, the coral has locomotion. After that time, it becomes permanently sessile. This species is a suspension feeder, and survives mainly on zooplankton and bacteria. These are captured by t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tabulata
Tabulata, commonly known as tabulate corals, are an order of extinct forms of coral. They are almost always colonial, forming colonies of individual hexagonal cells known as corallites defined by a skeleton of calcite, similar in appearance to a honeycomb. Adjacent cells are joined by small pores. Their distinguishing feature is their well-developed horizontal internal partitions (''tabulae'') within each cell, but reduced or absent vertical internal partitions ( ''septa''). They are usually smaller than rugose corals, but vary considerably in shape, from flat to conical to spherical. Around 300 species have been described. Among the most common tabulate corals in the fossil record are '' Aulopora'', '' Favosites'', '' Halysites'', '' Heliolites'', '' Pleurodictyum'', ''Sarcinula'' and '' Syringopora''. Tabulate corals with massive skeletons often contain endobiotic symbionts, such as cornulitids and '' Chaetosalpinx''. Like rugose corals, they lived entirely during the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
