http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/28/eco.complexcoral/index.html?iref=allsearch
People have known for a long time that corals are a very diverse species. But up until recently not much was known about their genetic makeup. "Corals have been a highly successful life form for 250 million years. They are tiny animals and polyps that exist as genetically identical individuals, and can eat, defend themselves and kill plankton for food. In the process they also secrete calcium carbonate that becomes the basis for an external skeleton on which they sit." Corals not only can fend for themselves but harbor life for species of all kinds.
It is very interesting to find that coral genetically rival human beings. It is terrible that we could know so much more about coral reefs but they are constantly being destroyed. Hopefully humans can help save these coral reefs, so that one day we may know everything there is about them.
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this is interesting to me because i honestly didn't know coral did all those things i thought they were just like ocean plants i had no idea they kill their own food and fend for themselves that way.
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