Corals

Abstract

Corals art objects of beauty and utility. They are found only in the sea, mainly in tropical and subtropics1 regions. Only very few, other than students of biology know that they are sedentary animals possessing a hard internal or external skeleton. They have attracted the attention of the biologists only recently and several problems related to them are still not explained to our fullest satisfaction. Earlier naturalists regarded them as marine plants, probably due to their sedentary habit and plant-like growth form, It was only in the latter half of the cigbteenth century Peyssonnel proved the animal nature of corals, But even middle nineteenth century students of natural history assigned them a place only between animals and plants and wore accordingly called 'zoophytes'.