Coral reefs
(Book)

Includes index.

Strange rock shapes with brilliant colors...reds, greens, blues, oranges and pinks. The colors change and shimmer and there is water full of equally vibrantly colored fish. There are other strange looking living things like nothing you have ever seen before. Where are you? You are in the underwater world exploring coral reefs. Although coral reefs look like rock formations, they are actually soft sea animals something like a jellyfish. They are composed of polyps, actually mouths, that congregate together on a rock on a shallow seafloor in tropical oceans. The polyps divide again and again developing into thousands of mouths connected to one another. Coral reefs grow very slowly. In a hundred years, one may grow just a few feet. There are two main kinds of coral reefs...hard and soft. Come and explore the beautiful world under the oceans.