Along the eastern coast of Australia there is the Great Barrier Reef, which extends for 2000 km. It...

The Great BarrierReef

• Along the eastern coast of Australia there is the Great Barrier Reef, which extends for 2000 km. It is built by the coral polyp.

• The Great Barrier Reef is near 18 mln years old. The area of the reef is more than 230 thousand sq km.

• Coral reefs are usually called the “live rocks”.

• They are built of thousands of polyps, which are closely set to each other. They make up a lime base and can get off easily.

• They differ from each other greatly.

• There are many kinds of corals.

• Among the coral polyps there live a lot of sea animals. You can find here fish of orange, yellow, pink, blue, violet and green colours.

• Another living organism here is a sponge. It is a “ sitting” animal. It can be of different forms. They eat coral polyps.

• A lot of star-fishes of different colours live in the reef. They also eat coral polyps.

• Among the corals swims a unique animal – a horse-fish. It looks like a chess figure and has a wonderful tail, that helps it swim very fast. The tail can also help the horse-fish to hold to some plant or a coral polyp. Males, not females, usually bring up babies.

• There are 400 kinds of corals in the Great Barrier Reef.

• 200 kinds of shells live there.• Over 2000 kinds of fish swim

among the corals.