Corals

Corals can live for thousands of years.

Coral bleaching does not immediately kill corals. They have the potential to recover if temperatures drop back below stressful levels and remain there for a long period of time—with no new shocks.

Coral bleaching occurs when corals become heat-stressed enough to expel their primary source of food, the microalgae that live inside their cells. This leaves the coral looking as white as if they had been soaking in bleach.

Sadly, almost all climate models show that meaningful recovery of corals along the Great Barrier Reef may be very difficult, if it is even possible at all.

Your eyes are like corals, dazzling and very pretty.

The subtidal reefs host a myriad of sponges, anemones and corals, whose presence converts the dark rock to fields of vibrant color.

The famous white-sand beaches of Hawaii, for example, actually come from the poop of parrotfish. The fish bite and scrape algae off of rocks and dead corals with their parrot-like beaks, grind up the inedible calcium-carbonate reef material (made mostly of coral skeletons) in their guts, and then excrete it as sand.

Studies show that some corals can live for up to 5,000 years, making them the longest living animals on Earth.

Some corals can live for up to 5,000 years, making them the longest living animals on Earth.

Scientists are now using a genetic approach to estimate the ages of corals. The method determines when a coral egg and sperm originally met to form the genome of a coral colony. The researchers then track the number of mutations that have accumulated in the genome since that time. Because mutations tend to arise at a relatively constant rate, researchers can estimate the approximate age of the coral genomes in their study.