11. Sea Anemones and Coral Animals Invertebrates 11. Sea Anemones and Coral Animals

Have you ever seen flowers called anemones? There are water animals that look like these flowers

These animals are called sea anemones They belong to a group of invertebrate water animals known as coelenterates

A kind of invertebrate water animals Vocabulary: coelenterate A kind of invertebrate water animals

Some of the world’s most colorful and beautiful sea animals are coelenterates

A sea anemone has many tentacles, or arms The tentacles have special cells with poison in them

Then, the tentacles take the food into the sea anemone’s mouth The sea anemone stings passing tiny fish or crustaceans with its tentacles Then, the tentacles take the food into the sea anemone’s mouth

Sea anemones can be found everywhere in the oceans Most of them live along the seacoast, where they attach themselves to rocks and shells

Like sea anemones, coral animals are coelenterates But unlike sea anemones, coral animals have skeletons

A framework that supports the body of an animal Vocabulary: skeleton A framework that supports the body of an animal

Coral animals are usually less than 1 inch wide At one end of the coral animal’s body is a mouth

Tiny tentacles catch even tinier plankton, which the coral animals feed on

Coral animals live together in a colony Vocabulary: colony A group of animals that live together

The coral animals attach themselves to each other by thin tissue A coral colony can be very big

As coral animals reproduce, the older ones die Their skeletons stay where they are, and new coral animals attach themselves to the skeletons

As time passes, the colony grows Colonies can grow in different shapes

Some look like heads of cabbage, and others look like trees without leaves

Coral colonies grow only in warm salt water They can be found, for example, in the South Pacific Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea

Many colonies can grow together to make a wall, called a coral reef Vocabulary: Coral reef A wall formed when large colonies of coral animals grow together

A reef can go all the way from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the water

The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is the world’s largest coral reef It is about 1,250 miles long