tags: Koralle, Senckenberg Naturmuseum, museums, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, travel, nature, cities, image of the day, photography
Koralle.
Senckenberg Naturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Image: GrrlScientist, 13 April 2010 [larger view]
Brain coral is a common name given to corals in the family Faviidae, so called due to their generally spheroid shape and grooved surface which resembles an animal brain. Each head of coral is formed by a colony of genetically identical polyps which secrete a hard skeleton of calcium carbonate; this makes them important coral reef builders like other stony corals.
More like this
This is the second in a series of five referenced articles about shared characteristics between deep and shallow water corals
This just out from NOAA:
Coral is a polyphyletic term for polypoid animals in the cnidarian classes Anthozoa and Hydrozoa that secrete either 1) a black, horn like proteinaceous axis or 2) carbonate skeletal material in the form of either a) continuous skeleton or b) an assemblage of microscopic, individual sclerites (Ca
That's a brain coral.
A very dead brain coral.
I was thinking the same thing, Katharine. Looks like it got bleached. Still a very beautiful pic though, I love seeing this stuff when I dive.