Biology

[mindi]

Can someone help me with some basic biology of corals. It is not clear to me what is a colony and what is a single animal. I am guessing that in the case of the Goniopora below then each waving tentacle and flower head is a single animal polyp. It is not at all clear to me about the Pectinia or Catalaphyllia .....a bit of education would be greatly appreciated.
I am also thinking the white Sarcophyton is one animal/polyp per white flower spot...?
The one i find most intriguing is the Ctenactis which has one mouth but appears to have many emergent tongues... one animal or many..?

 

[mindi]

Biology Question...

Biology Question...

Help out there... or am I in the wrong forum. That's possible. I cant believe that thr truth isn't out there...LOL

 

[syngraves]

your second and last pics would be examples of single animal corals. the rest are colonies and you are right in assuming each "flower" is a single animal in the colony.

if you do a general google search for info about coral colonies youll find tons of useful info.

Im always learning something new about these creatures lol

 

[hypostatic]

"What is a colony and what is a single animal"

The answer is yes. The colony is an individual, and all parts of it are clones, and they're all interconnected and part of the same organism; kind of like limbs on a tree. Generally, individual polyps are capable of forming whole new colonies under certain conditions -- just like how you can break off the limbs of some trees, stick them in the ground and they'll sprout roots and become new trees.

For Pectinia and Catalaphyllia, each polyp has it's own mouth, so that's you would distinguish one polyp from the other. It becomes a bit trickier than other corals where one begins and the other ends, since the polyps are not as well defined as in some other corals.

 

[mindi]

Thanks Hypostatic