Why are corals animals? Corals and all the most interesting things about them

CORAL
marine colonial coelenterates, mainly from the class of coral polyps, partly from the class of hydroids (hydrocorals), characterized by the ability to form a powerful - usually calcareous (from calcium carbonate), less often horny - skeleton, which is preserved after the death of the animal and contributes to the formation of reefs, atolls and islands. The most famous and important from an environmental point of view are the so-called. madreporous (stony) corals, since it is their growth that leads to the formation of coral reefs and islands. They are found almost exclusively in tropical and subtropical waters with a temperature not lower than 21 ° C and at a depth of no more than 27 m. The main places of their distribution are the Caribbean Sea (Florida, the Bahamas, the West Indies) and the Indo-Pacific region, especially the zone northeast of Australia (Coral Sea).
Polyps. Corals are usually called only the skeleton of the colony, which remains after the death of many small polyps. As a rule, they occupy cup-shaped depressions visible on its surface. The shape of these polyps is columnar, in most cases with a disc at the top, from which the corollas of the tentacles extend. The polyps are motionlessly attached to a skeleton common to the entire colony and are connected to each other by a living membrane covering it, and sometimes by tubes piercing the limestone. The skeleton is secreted by the outer epithelium of the polyps, mainly by their base (foot), so living individuals remain on the surface of the coral structure, and the whole structure continuously grows. The number of polyps involved in its formation also constantly increases through their asexual reproduction (budding). Corals also reproduce sexually, producing tiny free-swimming larvae that eventually settle to the bottom and give rise to new colonies. Usually during the day the polyps shrink, and at night they stretch out and straighten their tentacles, with the help of which they catch various small animals. In addition to madrepore corals, which belong to the subclass of six-rayed coral polyps, some other groups of them deserve attention. T.N. stinging coral from the class of hydroids forms dense plexuses of calcareous branches, permeated with miniature pores. Red or noble coral (Corallium), organ coral (Tubipora) and bright blue sun coral (Heliopora) belong to the subclass of eight-rayed corals and are distinguished from madrepores by the presence of eight feathery tentacles in the polyp, rather than a multiple of six.

Collier's Encyclopedia. - Open Society. 2000 .

See what "CORALS" are in other dictionaries:

Corals- Corals. CORAL, marine, mainly colonial coelenterates. Most have a calcareous skeleton. Coral reefs and atolls form in tropical seas; some are brightly colored (usually all shades of yellow, red and brown... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

corals- marine invertebrate animals of the class of coral polyps such as coelenterates. Some of them have a massive calcareous skeleton. Corals form large colonies, creating atolls, coral reefs and islands. Particularly numerous... Marine Biographical Dictionary

Corals, bright red, pink or white calcareous deposits of marine polyps. Used for making jewelry: 1) heb. the word peninim, usually translated as pearls and only in Lamentations 4:7 as corals, probably means... ... Brockhaus Biblical Encyclopedia

- (Greek koralion, from koreo I decorate, and hals sea). A genus of polyps that, attached to one another, form branches; as they die. They harden and enlarge over time, forming entire trees. They come in red, pink and... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

- (Greek singular korallion) marine cnidarians, mainly from the class of coral polyps. Corals are also the name given to the skeletons of some types of corals, from which jewelry and various crafts … Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Mor. cnidarians, ch. arr. from the class of coral polyps, partly from the class of hydroids (neg. hydrocorals). Most cells form a calcareous (less often horny) skeleton of various shapes. Thickets of madrepore corals form the basis of coral... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary

Fossils. Representatives of class K are already known from very ancient Silurian deposits and are found in more or less significant quantities in sediments of all systems up to and including the Quaternary, and in some places they form among marine sediments... ... Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

CORAL- (from the Greek korallion), 1) marine coelenterates (coral polyps, hydroid polyps). Most corals form a calcareous, less often horny, skeleton of various shapes. Thickets of madrepore corals form the basis of coral... ... Ecological dictionary

Corals- represent the calcareous skeleton of marine polyps and are usually used for making jewelry. The most important of the sinks for industrial use are mother-of-pearl...

Coral, in its essence, is not a stone in the usual sense. Most precious and ornamental minerals are inorganic chemical compounds. A small group of organic origin includes amber, jet, pearls and, of course, corals.

Description and origin

Coral is a calcareous mass of polyp skeletons, which, although they belong to the class of marine animals, are more reminiscent of plants in their shape and lifestyle. Polyps live in a calcareous shell and reproduce by budding. When a new organism branches off, the old one hardens, becoming a kind of home for its offspring. This is how huge polyp colonies are formed, extending up to several hundred and even thousands of kilometers.

Translated from Greek, the name of this unique creature means “son of the sea.” For many centuries, scientists found it difficult to determine the class of an organism, classifying it either as a plant or even as a stone.

The Swedish researcher Linnaeus even identified a separate group of zoophytes for him, that is, an intermediate category between plants and animals. It was only at the end of the 18th century that the origin of the coral was reliably established.

By chemical composition“living” stone is 80-85% calcite (calcium carbonate), and the remaining 15-20% is magnesium carbonate, manganese and iron oxides, as well as organic impurities.

Perennial coral colonies are complex branched formations with a large number processes. The length of the branch, as a rule, does not exceed 50 cm, and the thickness is 4-5 cm. The hardness of coral is very low, but its fragility is high. This makes it difficult to use the mineral for jewelry purposes. Large branches with thickenings at the base are used to make jewelry.

The color of coral can be very diverse: red, black, white and milky, pink, less often blue and yellow. Natural minerals are matte, only after processing they acquire a glassy shine.

The video explains what corals are, how they are formed and where they live, what magical properties possess.

Extraction and application

The habitat of corals is subtropical and tropical waters. The largest suppliers of stone are Australia, Japan, Taiwan, countries Caribbean Sea. Large colonies are found in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. An impressive volume of fossils comes from the Western Mediterranean, but the largest mining is carried out in Central America and the Australian continent. The most valuable specimens come from Italy.

From ancient times to the present day, the method of obtaining corals has remained virtually unchanged. What is used today, what was used several centuries ago wooden crosses with networks attached to them. From boats, such devices are lowered into the water and dragged along the bottom. Fragile shoots easily break and become entangled in nets. This extraction method greatly harms marine fauna, but it continues to be used as the simplest, most effective and cheapest.

Red noble corals are used in jewelry. This variety is the most highly prized and ranges in color from blood red to light pink. The color distribution is even throughout the entire branch. Rarely do you come across specimens with pinkish or pure white splashes. In medicine, stones are used to purify blood and create antidotes.

The mined corals are processed into cabochons and beads of various shapes. After sanding the stone with fine-grit sandpaper, a shine appears. Poor quality coral branches are impregnated with colored wax before processing.

• The chemical composition of pearls and coral is identical. The basis of both stones is carbonated lime.
• The structure of the polyp skeleton exactly replicates the structure of human bone. In both places you can find ingrown blood vessels.
• Some varieties can leave severe burns on the human body. As a rule, the water area where they grow is the Red and Caribbean Seas.
• Today there is a unique technology for counterfeiting coral stone. It allows you to obtain artificial specimens at a cost seven to eight times lower than natural ones. Without special equipment, it is almost impossible to distinguish a fake.
• The first jewelry made from coral was created in the Ancient Sumerian state. Their age is more than six thousand years.

Medicinal properties

The huge amount of calcium in the stone makes it a unique tool for healing broken bones.

Ancient healers knew how to prepare contraceptive drugs from coral powder.

Healers use it to relieve fatigue and improve body tone. It has a beneficial effect on blood circulation, memory, vision and hearing.

Pink polyp skeletons are useful for eliminating insomnia and bringing nervous system to normal condition.

For throat diseases or headaches, you should wear beads or a pendant.

Magical properties: amulets of the zodiac signs

The ancient Greeks considered corals to be a means of prolonging life. The Indians of Central America still wear them today to ward off evil spirits that bring fever.

This stone behaves rather capriciously with its owner, and prolonged wear leads to adventures and a quarrelsome disposition. The most dangerous period for wearing coral jewelry is considered to be the full moon. At this time, they should be removed and placed under running water, and then removed until the new moon.

Coral is a talisman for travelers and sailors. It protects from evil elements, from hurricanes, fires, storms.

Astrologers say that the mineral is especially useful for Capricorns. All other signs except Leo and Cancer can also ask him for help.

Jewelry

Jewelers do not have much love for coral due to its high fragility and susceptibility to the negative influence of sunlight, high temperatures and chemicals. Processing is also hampered by the fragile structure.

Corals are set in silver, less often in non-precious alloys for jewelry.

A silver ring with a small insert has a price of around $50. One carat of high-quality mineral will cost 25-50 dollars.

You can also purchase cheap jewelry such as bracelets, pendants, beads or earrings made from unprocessed or roughly polished pieces. Such products are most often sold in numerous souvenir shops on the coasts of the seas, where the source material is mined.

Earrings

Bracelets

Beads

Pendants

Coral is a stone with unique properties. Its sea soul is suitable for those who love freedom, simplicity and unusual things both in life and in their own wardrobe.

Lesson plan:

Coral reefs

If you have ever dived deep sea and they saw swaying corals there of bizarre shapes and bright colors, they most likely thought that they were seaweed. And this is not at all surprising. It’s enough to see what these sea inhabitants look like.

Many look like beautiful bushes with many branches growing upward year after year like trees. Some look like unique flowers that cannot be found in gardens and fields.

That is why even scientists for a long time could not determine what type of living organisms to classify such beauty. It was only in 1827 that the French researcher Peysonnel for the first time convincingly proved that corals are not marine plants. So what or who is it then?

Will I surprise you by emphatically declaring that coral reefs are made of tiny animals called polyps?! This is a class of coelenterate invertebrates that can live in colonies or alone. In total, today there are about 6,000 species.

Lower multicellular animals were among the first to appear in ancient times. They have only one cavity - the intestinal cavity, in which food is digested. That is why they are called so - coelenterates.

A baby polyp can grow in length from a millimeter to several centimeters. But there are also exceptions. Thus, representatives of the madrepore species reach sizes of half a meter in diameter.

From numerous small organisms a large single whole is formed, which appearance often resembles a bush growing on seabed and attracting our gaze.

Do you know what? Off the northeast coast of Australia is the longest coral reef of 2,500 kilometers. It's called the Great Barrier Reef. Natural object, visible even from space, is about 8,000 years old and is under the protection of UNESCO.

How do coral animals work?

These bottom microorganisms were created quite primitively.

The body of a coral polyp resembles a cylinder with tentacles at the end. Some polyps have a skeleton made of calcium. As a rule, they are motionless and do not move along the seabed, limited only by the bends and movements of the tentacles. But they know how to eat! After all, since they are animals, it means they must eat in order to grow.

What do you think the little bottom dwellers eat? The coral polyp's daily menu includes plankton and algae, and larger representatives may even have shrimp and small fish in their diet.

To eat food, these animals have a mouth hidden between the tentacles. In the intestinal cavity of the polyp there are cilia, thanks to which the animal lives. They create water flow, with which food and oxygen enter the small organism and waste is thrown out.

Corals that live alone have a sole with which they are attached to the seabed and with its help they can even move. Coral polyps living in a colony are united by a common body with the lower ends of the intestinal cavities.

Place of residence and lifestyle of corals

Where do amazingly beautiful animals live? Most of them choose the warm tropical sea, in which the water does not cool below +20 degrees. The depth where corals live is no more than 20 meters, because this is where a lot of plankton live - food for polyps.

In addition to warm water and shallow water, corals really need sunlight, so to see all the diversity of these animals you need to go to the equator. Of course, there are also lovers of great depth and those who are not afraid of frost. Thus, bathypates climbs to the seabed at 8000 meters, and among the cold-resistant representatives is such a species as hersemia.

Corals grow very slowly: only 1 to 3 centimeters per year. Therefore, it takes hundreds and thousands of years for reefs or entire coral islands - atolls - to form on the seabed.

When coral dies, it turns into hard rock. The fossilized polyp serves as a place for new animals to grow.

Do you know what? Coral requires salt water. Even the slightest ingress of fresh water into the habitat of coral polyps is destructive for them.

What types of corals are there?

Among the coral kingdom, there are some main species:

In addition, they are divided into six- and eight-rayed.

The color range of coral animals is striking in its palette. Red and brown colonies are most often found on the seabed. Orange-colored corals appear a little less often in nature, but seeing a black, green or pink colony is much more difficult. In addition, not every diving expert has observed purple or bright yellow polyps on the seabed.

Red animals are called “blood foam” or “blood flower”, and black ones are called “royal”.

Are there any benefits to coral animals?

Do you think corals have any benefits besides the fact that they can please the eyes of those who reach the depths of the sea?

In fact, the purpose of corals is much broader than just aesthetic.

And finally, corals serve as a material for making jewelry. Products containing coral are said to help with headaches.

Now you can confidently tell everyone that corals are animals, and also tell a lot of interesting things about them.

And right now I invite you to take an amazing journey to mysterious world coral reefs. And see everything with your own eyes. It's very beautiful)

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Today, 5,000 species of corals are known. They resemble something like a tree, bush, carpet, ball, etc. They are popular due to the fact that they are very similar to precious stones. But most people don't even know, Is it an animal or a plant? We will answer this question in this article.

Is coral an animal or plant?

It is very difficult to understand with the naked eye what kind of organisms these are. This is due to several reasons. But it’s worth saying right away that coral is an animal, not a plant. They have a skeleton that can only be felt if you touch it. You've probably heard about So, they consist of millions of dead organisms, which after death harden like stone. If we look at it in more detail, a coral is a huge number of tiny organisms that together form a polyp. The structure of a polyp is quite simple. It consists of a cylindrical body with tentacles. Between the latter there is a mouth opening.

Coral sizes and something else

Polyps are quite tiny, their size usually does not exceed a few centimeters. As for the colony that these creatures form, that is a completely different matter. For example, polyps of madrepore coral can reach 40-50 cm in diameter. Individual individuals are connected to each other through a coenosarc. As a result, single organism. All individuals obtain food together. The larger ones catch particles, the smaller ones participate in reproduction. So we have already figured out what corals are. Is it an animal or a plant? You already know the answer to this question. It is worth paying attention to the fact that the oldest coral reefs were created 23 million years ago. This suggests that the polyps appeared a very long time ago. As noted above, for the most part reefs are large number dead individuals. The exception is the top layer, which has formed recently.

Coral shapes and sizes

We can talk endlessly about the fact that there are a wide variety of colors of polyps. The same applies to their forms. If for the most part corals have the same shape, although there are exceptions, then they form the most impressionable and diverse colonies. This applies not only to shape, but also to color and size. The smallest colonies are no more than a few centimeters in length, and the giants of the genus can reach 5-6 meters. As for the form, that's a separate conversation.

Some colonies can be very simple and consist of a twig or hook. Others are distinguished by their complexity. For example, the shape of a shrub or colony that resembles that of a tree is not uncommon. One can endlessly wonder how such things form something so beautiful and complex. There are representatives that grow not upward, but in breadth. Such colonies resemble mushrooms or small carpets. You're probably wondering what an animal or plant eats? Of course, in most cases they capture microorganisms, which may include both (plankton).

and habitat

Coloring may vary. But most often you can see brown and red colonies. Orange ones are somewhat less common. It is even more difficult to find a green, pink or black colony. After all, not every scuba diver has seen blue-violet or bright yellow corals. They are considered very rare and do not live everywhere. As you can see, coral can be of very different colors. It's an animal or a plant, you already know, so let's talk about where the colonies live.

The main habitat of corals is tropical and subtropical waters. The fact is that most species are heat-loving. But Gersemia, one of the subspecies, lives far in the North. It is noteworthy that all polyps do not survive in fresh water, therefore absolutely all individuals live in a salty environment. Colonies settle at shallow depths of up to 50 meters in places with the greatest illumination. It is extremely important for corals that they are constantly in water, otherwise inevitable death occurs, but some individuals have learned to retain moisture for some time, for example, at low tide. The essence lies in the special shape of the polyp, which resembles a shell, where moisture is retained.

A few more features

You probably noticed that the most various shapes and the color can be even the simplest coral. Is it an animal or a plant? The answer to this question was voiced at the beginning of the article. But it is worth noting that if you do not touch the polyp, it is difficult to understand whether it is alive or not. However, by touching you can feel the skeleton of the animal. It is interesting that polyps always settle on a hard surface, since silt is not suitable for them. Large colonies can often be observed on long-sunk ships.

The lifestyle of many species is sedentary. However, some constantly move along the bottom in search of food. By the way, corals can be safely classified as predators. They go hunting at night. They stick out their tentacles and catch plankton and other organisms in the water. By the way, they do not search during the day because the tentacles are very sensitive to ultraviolet radiation; such radiation can burn them. We have already answered your question about whether corals are animals or plants. Photos of the most interesting colonies can be found in this article.

Conclusion

Despite their simplicity, polyps surprise with their beauty, which is why many people are attracted to corals. The sea, especially if it is salty, can always show you the most interesting settlements of these animals. Today, it is very common to deliberately catch entire colonies and make jewelry out of them. And they grow very slowly, about 1-3 centimeters per year. By the way, the growth process largely depends on the light and oxygen saturation of the water. It is for this simple reason that this issue comes up more and more often at meetings of researchers and conservationists. Over the course of tens of thousands of years, entire reef islands are formed, which are destroyed by humans in one day. Well, that’s all that can be said about what corals are. Animal or plant? Of course, an animal, because these organisms can grow and unite into entire colonies and ultimately build reef islands.

Returning from vacation, many people bring home souvenirs that will remind them of the sandy beach and warm sea. You can often find corals among them. They attract attention with their bizarre appearance, and they are specially mined for making souvenirs. What are corals: plants or animals?

coral reef
At first glance, it may seem that corals are plants that grow in coastal areas and in shallow waters. warm seas. But in fact, corals are the skeleton of a colony of living organisms called coral polyps.

Coral polyps belong to the class of marine invertebrates. Many types of coral polyps live on the bottom in large colonies, which form coral reefs of extraordinary beauty. The diversity of coral polyps includes more than 6,000 species, living mainly in warm waters, although some specimens also live in northern latitudes. Colonies of coral polyps have been found in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Scotland, and even in the rather cool White Sea.

The structure of a coral polyp
Coral polyps reproduce by budding and also through sexual reproduction. The resulting larvae float in the depths for some time as zooplankton, and then settle to the bottom, where they spend the rest of their lives. Corals feed, as a rule, on plankton, absorbing it along with sea ​​water during the filtration process. But some species are capable of swallowing small crustaceans or even fish. The skeleton of corals can be not only calcareous, but also consist of protein compounds. And there are corals that are generally devoid of any skeleton.

Brain coral from the order of stony coral polyps

All coral polyps are divided into two subclasses: six-rayed (which has 6 orders) and eight-rayed (which has 5 orders). The most numerous order is stony corals, which includes more than 3,000 species. Representatives of this order are most often found among the inhabitants of coral reefs and in souvenir shops. But other units are no less interesting.

Sea anemones are representatives of six-rayed corals of the order Anemones

Representatives of the order Zoantaria

And this coral polyp is from the order sea feathers

Corals are often used not only for making souvenirs, but also in jewelry. For this reason, corals are prohibited from being exported from some countries, such as Türkiye, Egypt, and Thailand. You can export corals if you have a receipt proving their purchase in a store. But in all other cases, frivolous tourists can expect trouble at customs.