| Cyathopodium | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Cnidaria |
| Class: | Anthozoa |
| Order: | Alcyonacea |
| Family: | Clavulariidae |
| Genus: | Cyathopodium Verrill, 1868 [1] |
| Species | |
| |
Cyathopodium is a genus of soft corals in the family Clavulariidae.
An atoll, sometimes known as a coral atoll, is a ring-shaped coral reef, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim.
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 sq mi). The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labelled it one of the seven natural wonders of the world in 1997. Australian World Heritage places included it in its list in 2007. The Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland in 2006.
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups.
Coral Springs, officially the City of Coral Springs, is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States, approximately 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Fort Lauderdale. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a population of 121,096. It is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,012,331 people at the 2015 census.
Cape Coral is a city located in Lee County, Florida, United States, on the Gulf of Mexico. Founded in 1957 and developed as a planned community, the city's population has grown to 200,972 as of 2020 Census Bureau estimates, a rise of over 30% from the 2010 Census, making it the 117th most populous city in the United States. With an area of 120 square miles (310 km2), Cape Coral is the largest city between Tampa and Miami in both population and area. It is the largest and principal city in the Cape Coral – Fort Myers, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city has over 400 mi (640 km) of navigable waterways, more than any other city on earth.
Coral Gables, officially the City of Coral Gables, is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, located southwest of Downtown Miami. The United States Census Bureau estimates conducted in 2019 yielded the city had a population of 49,700. Coral Gables is a Mediterranean-themed planned community known for its historic and affluent character reinforced by its strict zoning, popular landmarks, and tourist sights.
A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes—deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock outcrops, etc.—but there are also reefs such as the coral reefs of tropical waters formed by biotic processes dominated by corals and coralline algae, and artificial reefs such as shipwrecks and other anthropogenic underwater structures may occur intentionally or as the result of an accident, and sometimes have a designed role in enhancing the physical complexity of featureless sand bottoms, to attract a more diverse assemblage of organisms. Reefs are often quite near to the surface, but not all definitions require this.
The Philippine Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean east of the Philippine archipelago, occupying an estimated surface area of 5 million square kilometers. The Philippine Sea Plate forms the floor of the sea. Its western border is the first island chain to the west, comprising the Ryukyu Islands in the northwest and Taiwan in the west. Its southwestern border comprises the Philippine islands of Luzon, Catanduanes, Samar, Leyte, and Mindanao. Its northern border comprises the Japanese islands of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyūshū. Its eastern border is the second island chain to the west, comprising the Bonin Islands and Iwo Jima in the northeast, the Mariana Islands in the due east, and Halmahera, Palau, Yap and Ulithi in the southeast. Its southern border is Indonesia's Morotai Island.
The Coral Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) down the Australian northeast coast. The sea was the location for the Battle of the Coral Sea, a major confrontation during World War II between the navies of the Empire of Japan, and the United States and Australia.
Anthozoa is a class of marine invertebrates which includes the sea anemones, stony corals and soft corals. Adult anthozoans are almost all attached to the seabed, while their larvae can disperse as part of the plankton. The basic unit of the adult is the polyp; this consists of a cylindrical column topped by a disc with a central mouth surrounded by tentacles. Sea anemones are mostly solitary, but the majority of corals are colonial, being formed by the budding of new polyps from an original, founding individual. Colonies are strengthened by calcium carbonate and other materials and take various massive, plate-like, bushy or leafy forms.
Coral bleaching is the process when corals turn white due to various stressors, such as changes in temperature, light, or nutrients. Bleaching occurs when coral polyps expel the algae (zooxanthellae) that live inside their tissue, causing the coral to turn white. The zooxanthellae are photosynthetic, and as the water temperature rises, they begin to produce reactive oxygen species. This is toxic to the coral, so the coral expels the zooxanthellae. Since the zooxanthellae produce the majority of coral pigmentation, the coral tissue becomes transparent, revealing the coral skeleton made of calcium carbonate. Most bleached corals appear bright white, but some are pastel blue, yellow, or pink due to proteins in the coral.
Coral snakes are a large group of elapid snakes that can be subdivided into two distinct groups, Old World coral snakes and New World coral snakes. There are 16 species of Old World coral snake in three genera, and over 65 recognized species of New World coral snakes in two genera. Genetic studies have found that the most basal lineages are Asian, indicating that the group originated in the Old World.
Coral Castle is an oolite limestone structure created by the Latvian-American eccentric Edward Leedskalnin (1887–1951). It is located in unincorporated territory of Miami-Dade County, Florida, between the cities of Homestead and Leisure City. The structure comprises numerous megalithic stones, mostly limestone formed from coral, each weighing several tons. It is currently a privately operated tourist attraction. Coral Castle is noted for legends surrounding its creation that claim it was built single-handedly by Leedskalnin using reverse magnetism or supernatural abilities to move and carve numerous stones, each weighing many tons.
Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mouth is fringed with tentacles. Although some species are solitary, most are colonial. The founding polyp settles and starts to secrete calcium carbonate to protect its soft body. Solitary corals can be as much as 25 cm (10 in) across but in colonial species the polyps are usually only a few millimetres in diameter. These polyps reproduce asexually by budding, but remain attached to each other, forming a multi-polyp colony of clones with a common skeleton, which may be up to several metres in diameter or height according to species.
Clavulariidae is a family of soft corals in the suborder Stolonifera. Colonies in this family consist of separate retractable polyps growing from a horizontal, encrusting stolon or basal membrane. The tissues are stiffened by sclerites.
Cyathopodium elegans is a species of soft corals in the family Clavulariidae. It is found in the western part of the Atlantic Ocean.
Diogenes heteropsammicola is a species of hermit crab discovered during samplings between 2012 and 2016 in the shallow waters of the Japanese Amami Islands. This D. heteropsammicola is strongly associated with the walking corals. This hermit crab species is unique due to the discovery that they use living, growing coral as a shell. Crustaceans of this type commonly replace their shell as the organism grows in size, but D. heteropsammicola are the first of their kind to use solitary corals as a shell form. Heteropsammia and Heterocyathus are the two solitary corals that this hermit species has been observed as occupying. These two coral species are also used as a home by symbiotic sipunculans of the genus Aspidosiphon, which normally occupy the corals that the crabs were found inhabiting.
Heterocyathus is a genus of coral of the family Caryophylliidae.
Heteropsammia is a genus of apozooxanthellate corals that belong to the family Dendrophylliidae.
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