Myth vs Reality: What Corals Are

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with the NASA Earth Observatory.

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA except:

·       Great Barrier Reef underwater video footage courtesy of Andy Green at greenwaterproductions.net

·       Photo of reef fishers courtesy of Rebecca Weeks/Marine Photobank

·       Sea creature illustration copyright The National Library of Israel, Shapell Family Digitization Project _and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Geography – Historic Cities Research Project

·       Photo of fish at a coral reef courtesy of Linda Wade/NOAA

·       Photo of a dead reef in American Samoa copyright Wolcott Henry 2005/Marine Photobank

·       Photo of a bleached reef courtesy of Armando Jenik 2009/Marine Photobank

·       Staghorn coral photo courtesy of William Harrigan/Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary/NOAA

·       Photo of coral in Perhentian Islands, Malaysia, courtesy of Nazir Amin

·       Mediterranean red coral photo courtesy of Lorenzo Bramanti/Marine Photobank

·       Gorgonian coral photo courtesy of Mohammed Al Momany/NOAA

·       Acropora table coral photo copyright Pete Faulkner, Mission:awareness/Marine Photobank 

·       Sewage pipe photo courtesy of Steve Spring/Marine Photobank

·       Photo of coral with black band disease courtesy of Sven Zea, Universidad Nacional de Colombia/Marine Photobank

·       Blast-fishing photo courtesy of Benjamin De Ridder/Marine Photobank

·       Photo of coral with yellow band disease courtesy of Craig Quirolo, Reef Relief/Marine Photobank

·       Before-and-after photos of bleached coral courtesy of Craig Quirolo, Reef Relief/Marine Photobank

·       Photo of bleached coral in the Galapagos Islands courtesy of David Jacobsen-Fried/Marine Photobank

·       Photo of dead coral reef in Taiwan courtesy of Konstantin Tkachenko/Marine Photobank

·       Bleached coral video footage courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

·       Thermometer and coral reef illustrations: Marc Lussier, STScI

 

Written by Vanessa Thomas

Designed by Marc Lussier 

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

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Text, Myth Versus Reality. On a chart, the left-hand side is labeled Myth and the right-hand side is labeled Reality. Above the Myth column, an illustration of sea monsters attacking a ship. Above the Reality column, a satellite image of a body of water. Text in the Myth column, Corals are fossilized plants.

 

Text in the Reality column, Corals are small animals related to jellyfish. Each coral animal is called a polyp, and thousands of polyps form a colony. Hard corals extract calcium from seawater and use it to create a hardened structure for protection and growth. These tiny skeletons accumulate over thousands of years to form coral reefs.