The Boy in the Submarine – Episode 8: Coral

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Coral reefs are really important to the environment… they provide homes for hundreds of other sea creatures.

Owen

When people talk about coral we imagine big rolling hills and terrains full of strangely-shaped hard matter, it can look like cacti, giant mushrooms, fans, plants, or shelves attached to rocks, and it comes in all kinds of colours… but did you know all those amazing structures are made by a tiny animal?

Coral is a tiny invertebrate, kind of like a jellyfish. Once it find a place it likes, it makes a house for itself out of minerals it sucks out of the water. At night it sticks its long feelers out of tiny pores in its rocky shell. When a micro-organism gets pushed past by the water, it shoots out a little harpoon called a radula, and pulls it inside the coral to eat.

Over time, the coral attracts bacteria that live on its shell that gives it brilliant colours. As the coral gets older it eventually splits into new polyps, who often make their new shells on top of their parent’s old shells. In times these shells can form amazing structures, which are those amazing objects we think of as “Coral.” Whole forests and islands can form out of coral called a reef, which provides a home and safety to thousands of other sea creatures and plants.