Coral

[محمد ارسلان]

 

[محمد ارسلان]

Coral

Coral is one of the wonders of the creation of Allah, the Exalted, which lives in the sea at depths between five and 300 meters, where the coral attaches itself by its lower part to a rock or plant. The mouth opening at the top of its body is the highest part of its body, and is surrounded by a number of tentacles which it uses in order to feed. When these tentacles touch any prey – which is often small creatures such as shrimp – it is paralyzed immediately and sticks to them, then the tentacles retract toward the mouth, drawing the prey into a narrow channel like the oesophagus in humans.
One of the signs of the might of the Creator is that the coral multiplies in an asexual manner, by releasing spawn, and the resulting polyps remain united with the individuals that produced them, thus forming the coral “tree” which has a very thick stem, narrowing down greatly toward the branches. The coral tree is up to thirty centimeters long. The living colonies of coral come in various colors such as yellow, orange, red, pink, blue, emerald green or light gray.
Red coral is the solid core that is left after the living parts of the animal die. The stony skeletons form huge colonies or reefs. It used to be thought that these colonies were the summits of underwater volcanoes.
Most of these colonies or reefs are found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, where they sometimes rise above the surface of the water and become big enough to be colonized and inhabited by people. Or they may remain hidden beneath the surface of the water where they pose a danger to shipping.
One of these colonies is the chain of coral rock that is known as the Great Barrier Reef which lies northeast of Australia. This chain is 1,300 miles long and 50 miles wide, and it is formed of these tiny living creatures!

[from “Scientific Miracles in the Oceans & Animals” by “Yusuf Al-Hajj Ahmad”, published by Darussalam, 2010]