Great star coral
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| Great star coral | ||||||||||||||
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| Montastraea cavernosa Linnaeus, 1767 |
The Great star coral (Montastraea cavernosa) is a colonial stony coral found in the Caribbean seas. It forms massive boulders and sometimes develops into plates. Polyps are the size of a person's thumb and fully extend at night.[1]
This coral occasionally has a fluorescent red or orange color during daytime; it has been found recently that this color is due to phycoerythrin, a cyanobacterial protein. It appears that, in addition to symbiotic zooxanthella, this coral harbors endocellular symbiotic cyanobacteria, possibly to help it fix nitrogen.
[edit] References
- ^ Common Corals of Florida. Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
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