FIRE CORAL

Description: Fire corals are colonial marine organisms that look rather like real coral. Technically,they are not corals, since they are more closely related to hydra and other hydrozoans.                                                           

Kingdom: Animalia                                                                                                      

Phylum: Cnidaria                                                                                                                

Life span: They live for centuries and centuries!!!                                                      

Diet: They feed on zooplanktons,tiny animals and phytoplanktons or tiny plants that drift on ocean currents.                                                          

Interesting Facts: (1) Fire corals take on a variety of different shapes ranging from lacy branches to plate-like structures, to crusts that can cover other things growing on the reef, such as sea fans. (2) They are called fire corals because of their powerful stinging hairs or nematocysts. At first, these stinging hairs are only used to defend fishes like parrotfish which would nibble the corals. However, they were strong enough to injure divers who brush their skin against them, causing them to feel burn and itchy.                                          

Importance in Ecosystem: They are able to lay down a calcareous skeleton like those of the scleractinian corals. This ability makes the fire corals the second most important reef builder in the reef ecosystem.                                                                                                                  

Food Chain: Phytoplankton -> Zooplankton -> Fire Coral -> Parrotfish  

Habitat: Fire corals live in Caribbean reefs. More specifially, they occupy shallow coral reefs, where they cover many different substrates. The fire corals can also be found throughout the reef system in Bermuda.