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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. [1] 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 ...
The classification of corals has been discussed for millennia, owing to having similarities to both plants and animals. Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus described the red coral, korallion, in his book on stones, implying it was a mineral, but he described it as a deep-sea plant in his Enquiries on Plants, where he also mentions large stony plants that reveal bright flowers when under water in ...
Some species are endosymbionts of marine animals and other protists, and play an important part in the biology of coral reefs. Others predate other protozoa, and a few forms are parasitic. Many dinoflagellates are mixotrophic and could also be classified as phytoplankton. The toxic dinoflagellate Dinophysis acuta acquire chloroplasts from its prey.
Zooxanthellae (/ ˌ z oʊ ə z æ n ˈ θ ɛ l iː /; sg. zooxanthella) is a colloquial term for single-celled dinoflagellates that are able to live in symbiosis with diverse marine invertebrates including demosponges, corals, jellyfish, and nudibranchs.
Yellow longnose butterflyfish browsing on coral polyps. A corallivore is an animal that feeds on coral. Corallivores are an important group of reef organism because they can influence coral abundance, distribution, and community structure. Corallivores feed on coral using a variety of unique adaptations and strategies.
That’s why we’ve put together a collection of fascinating animal facts from the Instagram page Animal Pulse. ... researchers have discovered the largest coral ever documented. Spanning an ...
The name "Anthozoa" comes from the Greek words άνθος (ánthos; "flower") and ζώα (zóa; "animals"), hence ανθόζωα (anthozoa) = "flower animals", a reference to the floral appearance of their perennial polyp stage. [1] Anthozoans are exclusively marine, and include sea anemones, stony corals, soft corals, sea pens, sea fans and ...
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea.Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather than on taxonomy.