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Black corals are so called because the main axial skeleton is made of a spiny, keratin-like substance called "antipathin" which is a dark brownish-black. This colonial coral has a bushy, two dimensional form and grows out of a holdfast firmly anchored to a rock. It can grow to 1.5 m (5 ft) tall and a similar width.
Melithaea ochracea grows on shallow reefs in the South China Sea between Taiwan and Indonesia.Its range also includes Singapore and Malaysia. [3] In Taiwan, it is the most widespread gorgonian coral and is found on the higher parts of reef fronts where its numerous small polyps can feed at water flow rates varying from 4 to 40 centimetres (1.6 to 15.7 in) per second.
Porites is a genus of stony coral; they are small polyp stony (SPS) corals. (Also referred to as finger coral or hump coral) They are characterised by a finger-like morphology . Members of this genus have widely spaced calices , a well-developed wall reticulum and are bilaterally symmetrical .
White "black coral". Gooseneck barnacles are attached to a branch in the lower right center. In the deep waters off Malta in the Mediterranean Sea, Leiopathes glaberrima is the dominant species in what have been called "coral gardens", where it is associated with other scleractinian corals, gorgonians and zoanthids. The areas are characterised ...
Members of the family Melithaeidae are arborescent colonial corals forming fans, bushes or trees. The axis or main skeletal "trunk" is jointed, there being nodes, flexible horny joints, separated by internodes composed of hard, calcareous material.
Porites porites is a zooxanthellate coral, the tissues containing unicellular green algae living symbiotically within the cells. [2] These are photosynthetic and use the carbon dioxide and waste materials produced by the coral, supplying oxygen and organic compounds in return.
Despite its name, a black coral is rarely black, and depending on the species can be white, red, green, yellow, or brown. The corals derive their name from their black skeletons, which are composed of protein and chitin. [3] Black corals are also known as thorn corals due to the microscopic spines lining their skeletons. [4]
White black coral Leiopathes glaberrima with white sea anemones below, both azooxanthellate, deep water species. With longitudinal, transverse and radial muscles, polyps are able to elongate and shorten, bend and twist, inflate and deflate, and extend and contract their tentacles.