Among the myriad creatures that populate our ocean, some stand out as having an outsized impact on the marine ...

The ornately colored sea anemone (uh-NEM-uh-nee) is named after the equally flashy terrestrial anemone flower. A close relative of coral and jellyfish, anemones are stinging polyps that spend most ...

Coral reefs consist of hundreds of thousands of coral polyps - marine animal invertebrates with hard ... dugongs, fish, sea ...

complex and living ecosystems that are often called the rainforests of the sea. Like tropical rainforests, coral reefs provide life and habitats for an array of plants and animals. The underwater ...

Most corals are colonial animals - superorganisms comprising lots of smaller organisms - made up of multitudes sea anemone-like coral polyps. In the reef-building "hard corals", the polyps sit in ...

Within the structure of the coral reefs, members of almost every phyla of plants and animals live and die ... cemented with calcite and aragonite. If sea level changes, the reefs become exposed ...