Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Anthozoans are exclusively marine, and include sea anemones, stony corals, soft corals, sea pens, sea fans and sea pansies. Anthozoa is the largest taxon of cnidarians; over six thousand solitary and colonial species have been described. They range in size from small individuals less than half a centimetre across to large colonies a metre or ...
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.
Litophyton arboreum, also known as broccoli coral, is a common soft coral found from the Red Sea to the Western Pacific. It grows up to 80 cm, usually on seaward reef slopes or hard bottoms. The color of L. arboreum varies from pale olive-green to yellow or grey. L. arboreum are anthozoans in the order Alcyonacea in the family Nephtheidae.
Many soft corals are easily collected in the wild for the reef aquarium hobby, as small cuttings are less prone to infection or damage during shipping than stony corals. Nevertheless, home-grown specimens tend to be more adaptable to aquarium life and help conserve wild reefs.
Callogorgia is a genus of soft corals in the family Primnoidae. Callogorgia exhibit a fan shaped body structure that often serves as a habitat for other organisms. [2] [3] Callogorgia are a relatively recently researched genus, with most studies occurring in the last 40 years. [3]
Unlike the hard stony corals that build coral reefs, invasive species can outcompete and kill coral reef-building stony corals, sea grass meadows and mangrove systems as well as other organisms ...
Corals are animals related to jellyfish and sea anemones. The mega colony is a part of the Pavona clavus species. This species is often referred to as shoulder blade coral because its columns look ...
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 ...