Half hours with the lower animals : $b protozoans, sponges, corals, shells, insects, and crustaceansHolder, Charles Frederick
Science
Half hours with the lower animals : $b protozoans, sponges, corals, shells, insects, and crustaceans
Holder, Charles Frederick
Animals; Invertebrates
Still another coral has cells at short intervals up the branch; another
is cup-shaped with a single polyp. One of the most remarkable corals
(Fig. 38) has the cells of the polyps arranged after the fashion of
a pipe organ, from which the coral takes its name, while the polyp
itself, when expanded, resembles a daisy. Formerly corals were
supposed to be confined to the warm waters of the tropics, but this is
true only of the reef builders, which require a temperature not lower
than 63°, and are rarely, if ever, found at a greater depth than about
180 feet. Single polyp corals, like Fungia, are found at great depths
in the ocean, and certain corals grow in the Santa Catalina Channel on
the Pacific coast. In the Atlantic, as far north as Long Island Sound,
where the water is often icy cold, is found the beautiful Astrangia, a
coral in which the polyps are pure white and about five one-hundredths
of an inch in length.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Organ-pipe coral (_Tubipora_): _A_, cell
tubes; _B_, polyp expanded.]
In a general way we have passed in review some of the typical corals,
and may now glance at their manner of growth. If we cut one of the
cells of a coral across, we shall have a figure similar to that shown
in Figure 39. The white radiating partitions are coral, the black
spaces are rooms, which correspond to the little apartments in the
anemone. The coral develops by eggs and by budding, just as in the case
of its cousin, the anemone. The eggs, after enjoying a free-swimming
life for a while, settle upon the bottom and begin to secrete lime.
They do not build up a house as the mythical "coral insect" is
described as doing, but secrete it much as any animal secretes its
bones or shell. As the water flows through the animal it is enabled to
secrete the lime dissolved in the water. If we could watch every step
of the growing process, we should first see a little platform of lime
attached to the stone or object upon which the young coral animal has
dropped, then a little edge or rim which increases in size daily. Out
from this rim shoot the partitions, as shown in Figure 39. It will
be observed that they do not meet and join, but leave a place in the
center for the stomach. Finally, the cell is completely formed, and
we have a perfect cup of lime, a coral cell in which is ensconced the
anemonelike coral polyp. Its color is an olive brown, and when the
polyp is expanded its little tentacles resemble the petals of a flower.
With these it catches food, which it eats in very much the same way as
do the anemones. If this cup is a branch coral, soon a bud appears
upon the side, and a new cup or cell takes shape. Then another is
added, and we see the coral enlarging, branching out either by budding
or simply dividing until a large branch is the result.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Sections of a coral cell.]
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