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Corrugated coral feeding on crustaceans.

Corrugated coral feeding on crustaceans.
Corrugated coral feeding on crustaceans.
Corrugated coral feeding on crustaceans.
Corrugated coral feeding on crustaceans.
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207189
Drenkard, Elizabeth
Corrugated coral feeding on crustaceans.
Still Image
01/23/2011
coral_castle.jpg
Caption from 2013 wall calendar:
June - Coral Castle
Seen through a microscope, this corrugated coral seems like a battlemented castle wall defending itself against tiny missiles. In fact, the coral, Pavona, will simply catch and eat the little arrowhead-shaped crustaceans that swim too close and get caught on the coral's thin white digestive ("mesenterial") filaments. This coral was collected in Panama during a field course for MIT-WHOI Joint Program students taught by biologists Jesus Pineda and Ann Tarrant. Students fed the corals brine shrimp larvae and manipulated water flow, which stimulated the corals to extrude the filaments.
Image of the Day caption:
Seen through a microscope, this corrugated coral seems like a battlemented castle defending itself against tiny missiles. In fact, the coral will catch and eat any of the little arrowhead-shaped crustaceans that get caught on the coral's thin white digestive "mesenterial" filaments. This coral was collected in Panama during a field course for MIT-WHOI Joint Program students taught by biologists Jesús Pineda and Ann Tarrant. This image is in the 2013 WHOI calendar, available at the WHOI store and the Ocean Science Exhibit Center.
Photo by Liz Drenkard
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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