Friday, January 1, 2010

Corals Devouring Jellyfish?




That is what the picture (above) is showing.  While not Earth-shattering, it does give us a better understanding of the world we live in.
Photographs taken by Israeli researchers have shaken up long-held beliefs regarding the diet of corals. Scientists have long thought that corals subsist solely from single cell algae (Zooxanthella) and tiny plankton sized 0.2 to 0.4 mm. However, photographs taken in Eilat in March 2009 show that corals are capable of devouring much larger food.

Omri Bronstein of the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences in Tel Aviv University explained that the discovery was made in the course of a thorough survey of Fungia corals in the Gulf of Eilat, as part of a long term study of the corals' sexual plasticity, several corals of the type Fungia scruposa were seen and documented as they feasted on medusae of the type Aurelia aurita.

While it is known that many species eat medusae, including fish, sea turtles and birds, corals have never been documented consuming prey if this size.

Fungia, or plate corals, are usually found at depths from one meter to 100 meters. Some can measure dozens of centimeters in diameter as adults. The corals have been found to exhibit sexual plasticity: a coral that began its life as a female can change into a male in another season and back into a female in following seasons.

"These corals' amazing plasticity, both in the ability to change their gender and in their ability to feed off of food which they chance upon like the medusae, give them an advantage in dealing with the changing environment they live in,” Bronstein said.

The photographs have aroused great scientific interest and have been featured, among other places, in National Geographic and Scientific American magazines, as well as the BBC, Discovery channel and hundreds of news websites. The pictures were taken opposite the Inter-University Institute and the Underwater Observatory in Eilat.

Read the full story here.


Just look at them.  They look so peaceful, so lovely, so angelic.  Who would have known they are just cold-blooded jellyfish killers.  Who would have guessed?  Not me?



Just look at the poor Jellyfish.  Defenseless, homeless (Their homes were stolen from them by the agressive Zionist Corals.), without hope.  They have been made refugees for generations by the apartheid policies of the Corals.

Who will save the Jellyfish?

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