Coral fan Range XXL on standard (H48xB47cm) "rare" Philippines

Coral is a collective term for marine animals from the class Anthozoa. They are creatures of a few millimeters, which, with its plume, somewhat like a sea anemone (see also cnidarians). These animals, called polyps, often live in colonies. The brain coral in the picture is an example of such a colony. Coral colonies often form part of coral reefs. Within the Anthozoa class we distinguish two subclasses: the Alcyonaria and Zoantharia. The Alcyonaria are called Octocorallia, the eight (octo =) tentacles that counts each polyp. The corals from this group are, inter alia, soft corals: they do not make external lime skeleton to. The Zoantharia or Hexacorallia are polyps with six (hexa =) tentacles or a multiple thereof. The corals that provide building coral formations of limestone, belong to this group. The reef-building corals are colony corals. The polyps in the colony to make a joint external calcareous skeleton. That happens atop the skeleton of deceased polyps from the same colony. As coral reefs grow slowly but surely. There are also some corals: they grow individually and in private external calcareous skeleton. Today there are about 4,500 species of coral known. Mostly they form large kolonies- banks and reefs, such as the 2,300 km long Great Barrier Reef off the Australian coast. Corals grow in all warm and clean seas and oceans. In historical times they were common in the Mediterranean in Tunisia, Algeria, Italy, the islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily. Here come now, but to a lesser extent, the red and orange-red forms. Coral grows in the Bay of Biscay. From the Sea of Japan are white corals known for the coast of Taiwan, they are salmon red, pink corals grow at Midway island in the Pacific Ocean, black species in the Hawaiian Islands.