Coral Reef Habitat)

Hi, I am Jared. Welcome to Fun Science Demos. Take a look at these. We found these near the ocean. You know, they look like rocks, but they are not. They are actually similar to shells. In fact, they are made of the same stuff that shells are made of. Look at the amazing details. What in the world could possibly make these? Believe it or not, each one of these pieces come from an animal, and that animal lives in the ocean. That animal is called coral, and today we are going to take a look, a closer look, at where that animal lives, and scientists call that its habitat. We are going to zoom in so you can take a closer look at some of these coral to see how cool they are. Take a closer look at this one. Now check out this one. Take a closer look at this piece right here. And finally, we are going to zoom in so you can see this thing a lot closer. Now remember, coral is an animal, and it makes each one of these layer by layer, little by little, and the coral actually lives on the top. Why does it live on the top? Because one of the things it needs is light, light from the sun. So now we are going to take a field trip so we can see what real living coral looks like under the water. Where are we going? The Cayman Islands. How are we going to get there? Well, Compass Point Dive Resort has a really cool webcam set up so we can check out the coral under the water. Wow, how did we get here? The camera is underwater looking at a whole reef of coral, but we do not just see the coral, we see fish and other living things, and that coral does not look like this. This is white, but the coral in the video looks green. Why? Well, take a closer look. Each section is actually an animal, and all of them live together making this underneath. But why are they green? Well, that is because something else is living in the coral too. It does not matter the shape or size of the coral. The coral is green because all coral has plants living inside of it, and those plants actually make food for the coral, and the coral ends up protecting those plants. Is not that absolutely amazing? Let us just take some time to watch the coral and its habitat and all the other animals that are around it. So, did you notice all those fish swimming around the coral? What were those guys doing there? Well, some fish actually eat the coral for food, other fish use the coral for protection from bigger fish who want to eat them, and still other fish actually use the coral as their home. It is amazing how everything is working together. So many different animals in the ocean, like fish and shrimp, depend on this coral to live. If you want to learn more about coral reefs and how to protect them, check out our links in the video description. Science is so cool above the water or under the water. Thanks for watching.