WHAT ARE CORALS ?
Coral are made up of a thin layer of living animals called polyps, which secrete a chalky, limestone skeleton as they grow. Coral colonies grow as the polyps divide and multiply in a process known as budding. In addition to catching planktonic prey with their tentacles corals also derive nourishment from simple single celled algae called zooxanthellae (pronounced zoo-zan-thelly). living within their tissues. Like all plants, zooxanthellae photosynthesize, producing nutrients from the suns energy which are used by the polyp for its own nutrition. Corals with zooxanthellae are able to lay down limestone skeletons up to three times faster than those corals without.
