Crucial habitats in underwater ecosystems, and harbingers of the damage inflicted by global warming on the world’s oceans, coral reefs epitomize the beauty—and the fragility—of marine life. But ...

But new time-lapse photography shows new details of how a squishy, loner coral polyp without legs manages to “walk.” Instead of banding together to build coral reefs, mushroom corals typically ...

The mouth of a coral polyp (center): Symbiotic algae are labeled in red, pathogenic bacteria that enter through this region are labeled in blue. Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not ...

A single reef can be home to thousands of species ... are colorful algae called zooxanthellae. These algae live in coral polyps, providing coral with its bright color. The zooxanthellae ...

A coral, as you likely know, isn’t one single organism. Instead, it’s made up of a complex network of polyps that form a reef when “each individual stony coral organism — or polyp ...

But what exactly is coral bleaching, and why is this so damaging? We’ll explain everything you need to know, in a nutshell… Corals are tiny animals called a ‘polyps’, that typically live in large ...

An individual coral is a polyp. It’s a very small and simple creature consisting mostly of a stomach topped by a mouth, a bit like a hungry toddler. Corals take a very long time to grow.

As each polyp grows, they protect themselves with ... In 2015, Hawaii lost over half of its coral in a single month, he says. Since 2016, successive heatwaves killed over half of Australia ...

At night the animal part of the reef - the polyp - emerges to feed ... These night battles keep the reef ecosystem healthy, as no one single coral dominates. Importance: The health of coral ...