Did you know coral is an animal? Typically in shallow, warm waters around the world, thousands of species of coral find a home. They all belong to the phylum Cnidaria – making them closely related to anemones and jellyfish. But unlike their free-floating jellyfish cousins, coral is often a colonial animal. When you look at a branching hard coral structure, you aren’t just greeting one organism, but hundreds of thousands of individual coral polyps. Each polyp is cylindrical in shape with tentacles surrounding its singular opening. To eat, these types of coral will catch floating debris, zooplankton, or small fish with its tentacles and bring the food to its mouth. It’s possible for the colony to share a stomach cavity, so polyps can pass food to other organisms in their group. See coral thrive in our latest YouTube video, and witness the lively marine animals that accumulate around their colonies. Visit the link in our bio to watch! Video by paulnicklen #ocean #nature #planet #co...