Most of us have heard the most magnificent and beautiful things about it. You have probably seen it in Disney movies or documentaries, but only a small number of people have seen it in real life. I am talking about coral. Most of us know them as the impressive reefs with colorful fish in tropical, crystal-clear seas. However, there are thousands of other corals and information that you do not know yet. This article contains five facts about corals that you probably haven’t heard of yet.
- Corals are actually animals.
You might think that corals are plants or maybe even rocks, but they are not; they are in fact animals. Corals are alive, and therefore, they cannot be rocks, despite the fact that some of them create hard calcium carbonate skeletons around their soft bodies. Some people confuse corals with plants because corals can also have branch-like features with plant-like cells inside of them, and corals are attached to the bottom of the ocean like plants attach them to the ground with their roots. However, corals are not able to produce their own food, and self-food production is a quality that all plants have.
2. Corals grow really slow.
It may surprise you, but coral is one of the slowest-growing species on the planet. It only grows between 0.3 and 2.0 centimeters per year. The slow growth rate explains why coral can live so long. Some corals can live for up to 5,000 years, making them the longest-living animals on Earth. Technically, if there were a reef that was around a square mile, it could have taken over a million years to form. The growth rate of a reef depends on the water and the location of the reef.
3. Coral might be the answer to cancer.
Coral, especially soft coral, contains thousands of natural chemicals that you can use as anti-inflammatory agents, anibiotics, and other types of drugs. However, some of those natural chemicals are also useful for treating cancer, for example, eleutherobin. This chemical is easy to find in soft corals, but scientists were also able to recreate this potentially therapeutic compound in the laboratory. Eleutherobin can act as a potent inhibitor of cancer cell growth.
4. Climate change is the biggest threat to coral.
Corals are very vulnerable to changes in their environment. For example, it is critical that the water temperature not fall below 23 °C or rise above 29 °C. However, climate change causes the ocean water to heat up, and that threatens corals all around the world. Coral bleaching is a stress response when the water gets too warm and is caused by the expulsion of their symbiotic algae, leaving them bone-white and vulnerable to starvation and disease (see picture).
5. Corals can be fluorescent.
Corals are very beautiful with all their different colors and interesting shapes. However, did you know that some corals can be fluorescent, which makes them even more special? They can occur in all different kinds of colors, but especially green, red, and blue. The cause of the fluorescence colors is that pigments react to strong light, such as UV light. That is why you can see fluorescence coral if you go scuba diving with UV dive lights.
Now, you know that coral reefs are more than just big reefs with colorful fish in the ocean. They are very special, vulnerable, and slow-growing organisms that might be helpful against cancer and can be fluorescent at the same time.
12-07-23
Sources:
- https://www.sheddaquarium.org/stories/seven-surprising-facts-about-coral, shadaquarium, 15-06-23,
- https://www.funfactsabout.com/facts-about-coral/, funfactsabout, 15-06-23
- https://floridakeys.noaa.gov/corals/coralanimals.html, floridakeys, 21-06-23
- https://www.earth.com/news/chemical-found-in-soft-corals-could-be-used-to-treat-cancer/, Andrei Ionescu, 12-07-23
Sources of pictures:
- First picture: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/tropical-fish-on-a-coral-reef-gm613678930-105969347?phrase=corals, vlad61, 12-07-23
- Second picture: https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/coral-bleaching-gm629534636-112046343?phrase=corals, Rainer von Brandis, 12-07-23