OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — 3 News Now Anchor Zach Williamson continues his weekly series 'Zach at the Zoo' at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium. This week, introducing us to coral: truly a one-of-a-kind animal.
- “Most of the time people think they are plants or rocks, or don’t know what they are.”
- Coral can be found all around the Scott Aquarium at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium – including in the basement, where conservation efforts are underway.
- “We want to spawn these corals in captivity and actually put those babies back in the wild once the disease has kind of passed through, and hopefully those babies can grow up, reproduce on their own, and kind of kick start the reef again.”
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
“Most of the time people think they are plants or rocks, or don’t know what they are.”
“Very strange animal, very fascinating to me.”
The animal we’re talking about – coral.
“Just an amazing animal that can grow in nutrient poor areas, and they do so much for the ocean, and provide habitat — for such a microscopic animal to impact so much is just crazy,” Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo a& Aquarium Curator of Aquatics Mitch Carl said.
Healthy corals are home to algae – creating a mutually beneficial relationship with each other.
“So even though they’re an animal they photosynthesis like a plant,” Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium Senior Aquarist Lindsey Condray said.
Carl added, “They produce sugars and oxygen and that’s what they kind of live on. In return they give CO2 and phosphates and nitrates to the algae.”
But they aren’t limited to photosynthesis.
“They also can capture stuff. They have tentacles and nematocysts, which are stinging cells, so they can capture plankton or anything else passing by,” Carl said.
If the environment is healthy – coral can live forever.
“The reason for that is they’re colonel. So the polyp itself is a really, really small, microscopic animal — but that microscopic animal can divide, and divide, and divide,” Carl explained. “So it just makes clones and clones and clones of itself, and the same genetics of that animal are being spread out the same. So, they’re basically immortal.”
Carl and Condray recently supported that spawning in Bonaire.
“Corals spawn once a year. So, they have an event where they actually spawn at the same time and the same day,” Carl said. “Usually like at 9 o’clock on a Saturday, three days after a full moon, it’s a synchronized spawn.”
Their efforts through conservation are extremely important.
“They’re not doing well, especially in the Florida Reef Track.,” Carl said. “They’ve been hit by diseases, hurricanes, and just this past summer they got hit by a big bleaching event.”
“These are some of our Florida rescue corals for the Florida Reef Track Rescue Project,” Condray showed us.
“We want to spawn these corals in captivity and actually put those babies back in the wild once the disease has kind of passed through, and hopefully those babies can grow up, reproduce on their own, and kind of kickstart the reef again,” Carl explained.
Condray added, “Nothing like this had ever been done before with corals. So, it was a whole lot of learning on the fly with these very important, very endangered species.”
These corals are being taken care of off exhibit, but you can check out plenty of others throughout the Scott Aquarium.
