The largest coral reefs. Where are the best corals in Egypt. Buy corals in Egypt

let's talk about corals - ancient creatures on Earth and some of the most beautiful marine life.

Great Barrier Reef- the largest population of coral polyps that formed a reef system with a length of more than 2600 kilometers. The reef is located along north coast Australia. The Great Barrier Reef has over 2,900 independent reefs and 900 coral islands.

The Great Barrier Reef is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. About 400 species of corals, 1,500 species of fish and a variety of other animals and plants have been found here.

UNESCO has listed the Great Barrier Reef as a World Heritage Site. (Photo by Nicole Duplaix):

Corals are the flowers of the sea. These corals from the Philippines really look like flowers. (Photo by Tim Laman):

Corals are unusual marine animals, representatives of the coelenterates - one of the most primitive types of living creatures on Earth. This is one of the oldest groups of multicellular organisms on Earth, they have existed for many millions of years. Corals are unusual in that they have the ability to form a strong calcareous skeleton that persists after the death of the animal and contributes to the formation of atolls and reefs.

It grows up to 30 cm. It often lives at the entrance to underwater caves, on great depths ah, up to 30 meters. (Photo by Heather Perry):

Corals live in tropical and subtropical marine waters and live in water with a temperature of at least 21 degrees Celsius. Corals come in different colors (pink, red, blue, white, black), their color depends on the composition and amount of organic compounds. More than 2500 varieties of corals are known. (Photo by Tim Laman):

Red corals are called "blood foam", "flower of blood", black - "royal corals". Pink, red and black corals are considered the most valuable. The coral reef is a kind of magnet, attracting crabs, lobsters, mollusks, fish and scuba divers for various reasons. (Photo by Heather Perry):

. (Photo by Tim Laman):

(Photo by Tim Laman):

In the Cayman Islands. Coral reefs- calcareous geological structures formed by coral polyps and some types of algae. The total area of ​​coral reefs in the world exceeds 27 million km². They are located mainly in the Pacific and Indian oceans. About 1/3 of the world's coral reefs have already been destroyed. With the current trend, some reefs will be destroyed by 2030. (Photo by Raul Touzon):

IN papua new guinea. The word "coral" in our mind is always associated with something solid. , fragile. However, there are also soft corals, which, as the name suggests, lack a solid, hard skeleton. Soft corals can take quite large areas on the reef. Many species of soft corals shrink into shapeless clumps during the day, only to spread out at dusk. Therefore, their exquisite beauty can only be fully appreciated during a night dive. (Photo by Wolcott Henry):

Alcyonaria or soft corals- the most numerous order of eight-pointed corals. They are widely distributed in the seas and oceans, occurring from the polar regions to the equator and from the littoral to great depths. (Photo by Wolcott Henry):

in New Zealand. They create an underwater forest for colorful reef fish and can live for 300 years. (Photo by Brian Skerry):

Corals in the National park Komodo, which is located in the center of the Indonesian archipelago, and is an object world heritage UNESCO:

And clown fish

Named in honor of Medusa Gorgon:

Green acropora tenuis coral:

Another representatives soft corals:

Soft violet coral:

bright red soft coral:

The study of this gigantic barrier off the coast of Australia was initiated by great navigator James Cook. His sailing ship Endeavor became the first ship to pass through the narrow strait between the Great Barrier Reef and the coast of the mainland. Traveling more than a thousand kilometers without maps along the most difficult fairway, replete with shoals and underwater rocks, was, of course, a miracle of nautical art. But even the famous Cook had to experience the treachery of the local waters. His Endeavor nevertheless stumbled upon a coral reef, damaged the hull, and only by throwing all the guns and part of the cargo overboard did the English captain manage to get off the cliff and get to the shore.

Over the past two centuries, hundreds of ships have been damaged or sunk on the reefs of the Australian coral barrier. Even in the 20th century there were maritime disasters. AND geographical names in this part coral sea speak for themselves: Cape Trouble, Painful Bay, the Islands of Hope. It is not for nothing that the waters in the area of ​​the Great Barrier Reef attract numerous treasure hunters of sunken ships like a magnet.

Big barrier reef- the world's largest coral ridge, consisting of more than 2900 reefs and 900 islands of various sizes, stretching for more than 2600 km along northeast coast Australia and covering an area of ​​350,000 km². It is almost impossible to establish the exact size of the territory, since the area of ​​​​the islands varies depending on the tides. The reef is located in the Coral Sea, territorially belongs to the state of Queensland. In 1979, a national marine park, which received in 1981 the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The capital of the reef is Cairns.

From the point of view of such sciences as biology, geology, this is one of the greatest miracles nature. Only superlatives are justly attached to it; his recognition natural heritage, biosphere reserve and the marine park reflects its global importance.

Some islands, about 100, are permanently covered with vegetation; and 600 more high islands are surrounded by their own reefs. His total area- larger than the area of ​​Great Britain.


The Great Barrier Reef, visible from space, is the largest structure formed by billions of tiny living organisms known as coral polyps.

Satellite image of the Great Barrier Reef

The age of individual fragments of the reef reaches 18 million years, but most of much "younger" - 500 thousand years.

The reef, which in itself is one of the largest geological formations, is essentially composed of living creatures or coral polyps, outwardly similar to the anemones found near the coast. These tiny primitive organisms live in huge colonies, each of which has developed from an individual polyp that has undergone countless divisions.

The first coral reefs on the site of a giant coral barrier arose millions of years ago. But its main part is about five hundred thousand years old. During this time, coral polyps managed to build buildings average height one hundred and twenty meters. Reef construction continues even now, although it is not easy to notice.

coral formations

After all, the "houses" of polyps grow very slowly. It takes a whole year for a sprig of coral to grow only five centimeters.


The width of the Great Barrier Reef ranges from three hundred meters in the north to five kilometers in the southern part, and from the coast of the mainland it is at a distance of thirty kilometers (near the Cape York Peninsula) to two hundred and fifty (near the Tropic of Capricorn).

Describing the underwater kingdom of the Great Barrier Reef, stunning in its beauty and diversity of life, people do not skimp on magnificent epithets and comparisons: "The world of blue dreams", "The greatest architectural structure nature on the whole planet", "Amazing underwater forest", "The eighth wonder of the world", "Breathtaking underwater landscape", "The richest marine ecosystem in the world".

Indeed, in terms of the number of inhabitants and their strikingly picturesque appearance, the Great Barrier Reef has no equal in the oceans. There are about four hundred species of corals alone here. Some of them look like a human brain (they are called "brain"), others look like strange lacy mushrooms, branches or curtains, and still others look like deer antlers. They are hard and soft, white and colored, and once in their fabulous underwater kingdom, you begin to think that you find yourself in some fantastic garden among outlandish unearthly flowers: blue, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, red and even black .

Huge Tridanka

But corals make up only a tenth of the population of the underwater barrier. In addition to them, more than four thousand species of mollusks live on the reef, from snails to giant meter-long bivalve tridacnids, as well as sponges, sea anemones, crayfish, crabs, starfish, sea ​​urchins and lots of algae.


But the main decoration of the waters of the Great Barrier Reef is, of course, fish. In terms of the exotic coloring and the multiplicity of species and forms, neither the flowering mountain meadow, nor the world of Disney's fabulous films can be compared with the kingdom of coral fish. Only a small fraction of this multicolor can be seen in marine aquariums zoos. After all, the number of fish species in the bizarre coral forests of our planet reaches several thousand!



And the Great Barrier Reef is no exception. One and a half thousand representatives of the ichthyofauna graze in its underwater thickets, washed by the warm waters of the Coral Sea. The names of many of them speak for themselves: butterfly fish, wrasse, clown fish, puffer fish, parrot fish, blenny, hedgehog fish, cardinal and even. fly fish. And besides them, sea bass and moray eels, stingrays and sharks, groupers and sea pikes and many other representatives of the fish kingdom are found here.








On the islands of the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef, large sea ​​turtles to lay their eggs in holes dug on the beach. Then they cover the masonry with sand, tamp it down and swim back to the sea. The offspring that were born have to independently dig their way to the surface and get to their native sea element along the wet sand of the coral beach.

Sea turtle

Here are turtles, in which even the shell has not yet hardened, and dangers lie in wait. Thousands of sea birds living on the islands are just waiting for this moment. Dive down, they grab the baby turtles one by one, and only a few manage to get to the saving water.

The islands of the Great Barrier Reef are home to as many as two hundred and forty species of birds. These are petrels, phaetons, frigatebirds, boobies, terns, fulmars, white-bellied eagles and many others.

But there are few mammals in the waters surrounding the reef. Mostly whales and dolphins.


And besides them, the dugong, a close relative of the sea cow, grazes in the thickets of algae between the islands.

Beautiful underwater forests and meadows, sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow, seem invulnerable at first glance. Still - after all, they are stone, and what can threaten a stone?

But it turns out that coral reefs are just as vulnerable as any other creation of wildlife. And the recent disaster that happened to the Australian reef, once again reminded of this.

Starfish "crown of thorns"

In the 1960s and 1970s, the existence of the Great Barrier Reef was threatened due to a sharp increase in the number of starfish. The danger came from one of the species of these echinoderms, wearing beautiful name"crown of thorns". Huge, reaching half a meter in diameter, a starfish with numerous tentacles turned out to be a terrible enemy of coral polyps. Sticking to their buildings, the "crown of thorns" releases digestive juice into the holes of the coral "houses" and digests the polyps, leaving behind a dead zone. In a year, one star can destroy life on six square meters of a reef.

The exaggerated increase in the number of these once rather rare polyp-eaters, as it turned out, was associated with the disappearance in many places of the Great Barrier Reef of their natural enemies - predatory newt snails. Because of the large beautiful shells, souvenir hunters collected tons of newts for sale to tourists.

As a result, freed from the natural limiter of their numbers, starfish began to multiply intensively, and entire sections of the coral barrier turned into a lifeless sea ​​desert. Now hunting for newt snails is prohibited, scuba divers armed with poison syringes are fighting the "crown of thorns", and little by little the natural balance on the reef is being restored. But in many of the destroyed areas of the Great Barrier Reef, life will return only in twenty to thirty years.

Napoleon fish

Warm waters, deserted beaches, an abundance of small secluded islands and the opportunity to spend long hours in an exceptionally picturesque underwater kingdom attract hundreds of thousands of tourists to this amazing corner of the Earth.


Some of them are limited to excursions on ships and boats in order to devote the rest of the time to getting to know the equally unique wildlife of the Australian coast.

But more purposeful lovers of marine fauna settle on the islands for two or three weeks, tirelessly watching and filming coral worlds. Although the Australians organized here marine reserve only a few particularly vulnerable areas of the Great Barrier Reef are under strict protection.

And according to the reviews of travelers who traveled a lot around the planet and scuba diving off the coast of the Maldives and Seychelles, Hawaiian Islands and the Galapagos archipelago, which have seen the coral thickets of the Caribbean and Red Sea, French Polynesia and the Palau Islands water world The Great Barrier Reef is unmatched in scale and diversity.

No wonder thousands of tourists fly and sail across half the world to distant Australia to enjoy the incomparable charm blue lagoons and the straits that harbor the innumerable living treasures of the Great Barrier Reef.

Coral reef - is a huge colony, consisting of billions of tiny creatures - coral polyps. Their length is only a few millimeters. They absorb calcium dissolved in sea water, forming a calcareous skeleton of the colony from it.

The most famous and longest coral reef stretches for almost two thousand kilometers along the east coast of Australia - this is. It consists of many coral islands. It consists of about 2,900 individual reefs and 71 islands. Some call this reef the eighth wonder of the world, but for scuba divers, this is the most popular place. Its age is not less than ten thousand years. Reefs grow from different speed. Some manage to grow 20 centimeters from year to year, while others barely add 20 millimeters.

About 4,000 species of mollusks, about 2,000 species of fish, 1,000 different sponges, 350 species of starfish and other echinoderms live in coral reefs. In total, there are almost two and a half thousand reef-forming corals.

Hollows are visible on the surface of the reefs: polyps hid in them and wait for their prey. Polyps catch plankton. They are helped to hunt by their stinging capsules, whose touch is also unpleasant for humans.

A German journalist, Alfrem Brehm, cites the story of a scientist who studied corals: “I am trying to break off a branch from another coral, but again unsuccessfully: the coral turns out to be burning and at the first touch my hand starts to burn terribly, as if it had been burned.” Polyps feed on unicellular, as well as larvae of worms and tiny crustaceans teeming in plankton.

In addition, they absorb the nutrients contained in the water. However, this diet is not sufficient for most corals. Therefore, they live in symbiosis with unicellular algae. Algae help the corals by supplying them with oxygen, and in return they receive minerals. It is algae that paint tropical coral reefs in amazing colors.

And so, all this is good, and there are many advantages for the animal world from coral reefs, as we see. But, in 1998, the death of coastal corals began to be noticed in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. And it turned out that a quarter of the entire Great Barrier Reef was damaged. The decline in the number of reefs is observed today, scientists are working on this problem. They argue that if things go on like this, then humanity will also have problems, and not just the fish world.

Corals are dying primarily because the water in the oceans is getting warmer due to the greenhouse effect. This conclusion was made by employees of the National Oceanographic Institute of the United States, Corals are very sensitive to all changes in temperature. In tropical seas, the water is usually warmed up to 26 - 28 degrees. If for a few days it rises by only one degree, then the corals already become uneasy: they experience real stress. And there comes a state in which they are forced to reject the algae with which they live in symbiosis. The reefs are discolored, their variegated color fades. The lush underwater forest turns into a dull, whitish frame made up of calcareous skeletons.

Australian biologist Professor Ove Heg-Guldberg from the University of Sydney confirmed this conjecture with the help of simple experiments (their results were published in the summer of 1999). He placed the corals in a simple aquarium and heated the water in it, after a while their fertility dropped by 40 percent. If the extinction of coral reefs continues, the seas will become completely different, their water world will become scarcer.

Here is what the famous 19th-century zoologist Alfred Edmund Brehm wrote about coral reefs - “wonderful coral thickets surpass the mythical gardens of the Hesperides.” Coral reefs provide a huge service to cities by serving as natural breakwaters. In addition, some coral species are used in medicine, such as Eleutherobia. This type produces the protein eleutherobin, which stops the development of cancer cells.

In general, coral reefs feed many and are useful to many, including humans. But there is a way out, you can restore the dead sections of the reef. Many species of reef breed only once a year, throwing out their germ cells in the spring, on a full moon. For several days, the sea near the reef is covered with an abundant slimy mass. Then the larvae sink to the bottom, forming a new colony or growing together with the parent community.

Thus, this building material can be transferred to problem areas.

Or is there another, more interesting way. A wire is taken, pubescent in water, passing a small current through it. Soon the metal is covered with a crust: brucite and calcium carbonate are deposited on it - substances containing magnesium and calcium. This crust serves as a haven for corals and mollusks. Over time, the reef grows. In this way, you can control the general appearance of the reef. For example, you can extend a line along the beach.

coral reef photo

There are many lists advertising the seven wonders. ancient world, new world, various countries and continents, but no list has yet been created for the seven wonders underwater world. In 1989 CEDAM International, an international association of divers, decided to create their own ranking describing the world's most breathtaking underwater locations. This article is waiting for you fascinating excursion on the seas, lakes and oceans, offering a virtual acquaintance with the 7 wonders of the underwater world.

1. Galapagos Islands: Located in pacific ocean, west of Ecuador, Galapagos Islands rose from the earth's crust from an ocean volcano at the bottom of the ocean. The relatively new volcanic geology has created a habitat rich in flora, fauna and animal life that has been studied and admired by numerous travelers, scientists and nature lovers from every continent.

Coral is a structure made up of millions of very small marine animals called polyps. The polyp, which is tube-shaped, is only an inch long. At the end of this tube is a mouth surrounded by tentacles that bring sea creatures to it. The color of corals is very diverse, as well as their shapes and sizes. They have both an internal and an external skeleton. They can be soft or hard, black, smooth or prickly and other types. Some are like feathers, others are like fingers. The polyps are hollow and attach themselves to other polyps or to limestone rocks to form large structures. Almost all corals live together in groups called colonies. Very large colonies are called reefs. Polyps take calcium from sea ​​water and turn it into limestone around the lower part of their body. New polyps grow and the limestone structure gets bigger and bigger.

Corals live in oceans all over the world, but survive best in warm water. In tropical oceans, they form large structures called atolls. Atolls grow around old volcanoes and form ring-shaped islands. Coral polyps eat small marine animals such as jellyfish larvae. Some people need seaweed to survive. Corals can reproduce by budding. Small buds appear on the body of the polyp. They grow up and separate from their parents. Corals can also lay eggs that grow into new colonies. Some types of coral live for hundreds of years.

coral reef

A coral reef is an underwater mountain formed by coral skeletons. Reefs are also made up of other living things such as seaweed or shellfish. The coral reef has vibrant colors and can grow for hundreds of years without being destroyed by the ocean. Location of coral reefs around the world.

Reef types:

• Reef line - located near the coast line they are usually the youngest reef forms
• Barrier reefs are located farther from the coast, they form a wall between shallow water near the coast and open sea some barrier reefs are very large The longest is 2 thousand kilometers long The Great Barrier Reef is on east coast australia
• Atolls are ring-shaped reefs. They form when old volcano erupts and sinks into the sea The reef grows upward from the edge of the volcanoes along with the lagoon formed in the middle
  Most reefs need warm water to survive They grow best in water that is at least between 16 and 20 degrees. Reefs also need enough sunlight to eat. Coral reefs can also be found in warm ocean waters Pacific and Indian Oceans as well as in the Caribbean Sea and the east coast of the central part South America They usually grow very slowly, no more than 10 cm per year. They can be found near the surface where they get enough sunlight.

Life on coral reefs

A coral reef can have thousands of different types of corals and other organisms. This would be a record if not for the rainforests, which can contain even more different organisms. That is why coral reefs are called tropical forests seas. Many fish species live near coral reefs. Their bodies have the ability to change, which makes it possible for them to live and find food in this area. In addition, coral reefs are home to crabs, lobsters, octopuses, starfish and other invertebrates.

Significance of corals and coral reefs:

1. Corals remove and recycle carbon dioxide, a gas that is responsible for the greenhouse effect.
2. Reefs protect islands and continents from waves and storms and allow other species to thrive in the shallow waters near the coast.
3. The coral reef is a complex ecosystem with various types organisms. Without reefs, they would die.
4. Coral skeletons are used as substances for bones and other parts of our body.
5. Coral reefs are living laboratories for scientists and students.
6. The reefs attract millions of tourists every year.
7. People make jewelry made from coral reefs.

Major threats to coral reefs: