Our planet is home to a wide variety of life, from the smallest to the largest. But still There is only one animal that can be seen from space And, contrary to what we first think, it isn't Not an elephant or a blue whale.
Surprisingly, the correct answer Coral Because, unlike many people believe, it does not belong to the plant world, but to the animal world.
Coral feeds on zooplankton, creating calcareous waste. With very interesting and varied patterns. They are colonial animals, composed of several thousand individuals, which leave their calcium structures behind when they die. Thus, over millions of years, they form Limestone structures are called Coral reefs.
Currently, the largest rocks on Earth, the Great Barrier Reef. It measures nothing more than 2,600 kilometers Perfectly visible from space. It is interesting to know that it is not a continuous reef line but is made up of more than that 2,000 individual reefs and 1,000 islands.
Some corals live in symbiosis with certain types of algae, so they are very close to the surface because they need sunlight to carry out photosynthesis. Many coral reefs show why Different colors The reason is their symbiosis with algae.
In general, the conditions of temperature, salinity and luminosity under which corals grow are very mild. For this reason, thousands of coral reefs around the world have been destroyed in recent years Climate change. Many of them are endangered.
Another curious and interesting fact about these animals is that their close relative, the sea anemone, had coral reefs. The first animals that lived in the sea About 800 million years ago.
