What do we know about corals?
What are these living beings? Are these plants or animals? And how they manage
build whole islands and archipelagos? Let's start with the fact that all that we are accustomed to call corals, these are huge colonies of smallest benthic animals - polyps. 
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/809/40040542635_dcc6d45bb5_o.jpg" width="1620" height="1080" alt="Corals">
Coral polyps are a class of marine invertebrates. And most of them do not have an internal skeleton, but they build an external calcareous skeleton, which we most often and see. Although there are varieties of polyps that are built on the inner skeleton (eight-ray) or do completely without it.
<img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4772/40226032464_50f49da8c3_o.jpg" width="1620" height="1080" alt="Corals">
Further in this article I will talk only about the so-called reef-forming, six-beam corals, leaving others for later. Coral polyps live in salty warm water from 20 to 30 degrees. During the day they hide in their skeleton, and at night the most interesting time comes when they stretch out, straighten their tentacles and begin to "hunt." There is an opinion, it is very difficult to find food, being a small size and all life attached to one place? However, it is not. 
<img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4794/40226623624_b467cae151_o.jpg" width="938" height="1080" alt="IMG_8754">

Coral polyps feed on plankton and small-sea animals passing past. And by no means not lack of food is a major problem for corals. The main enemy capable of destroying entire underwater cities is the rise in the temperature of the water of the world's oceans. 

Only a few degrees above 30 and corals perish. Such a massive death of corals already happened in 1998, as a result of El Niño (this is a fluctuation in the temperature of the surface layer of water). A huge number of corals around the world died, leaving only an empty deadly calcareous skeleton. Does it really look like a world history?
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/807/27063141498_b2a4119729_o.jpg" width="1628" height="1080" alt="Corals">

The life and death of different civilizations, after which only the ruins of cities remain, which in their turn either eventually collapse eventually and are difficult to distinguish from the natural landscape, and sometimes engage in new young civilizations. However, let's leave the history and all global processes, they require long-term observations.
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The development of coral reefs is a complex and very slow process. But
at least this is an excuse to protect them, since the destruction done in one day
may require hundreds of years to recover.
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/797/40892572392_c10d311d9d_o.jpg" width="1620" height="1080" alt="Corals">
Let's take a closer look at the coral reef, because each of them this is a unique city, with its architecture, its inhabitants, its destiny. Looking in the windows of the houses, we can see the everyday life of its inhabitants and the unique interior and exterior decoration. 

Fine statues, ornate arches, skyscrapers stretching towards the sun, and parks surrounded by carved fences. And, if desired, there is a way to look even deeper, when a strong increase will open for us the builders themselves - tiny polyps. They themselves are modest and try to avoid close attention. Bright light makes them hide within their constructions.
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/820/40226036194_133de73366_o.jpg" width="1695" height="1080" alt="Corals">
On the other hand, there may be completely different relationships between different corals, sometimes as a result, new species arise, and sometimes more like a brutal war. So it turns out that in addition to history and biology, corals have their own art and architecture. And I would like to tell about these parties first of all. After all, any of us can see it with our own eyes without resorting to complicated techniques.
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I have been shooting corals for many years, and every time I open and find for myself something new and unusual. It seems to me that the universal property of life, and not the unique property of a particular species. 
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/792/27063148528_098e359f2d_o.jpg" width="1620" height="1080" alt="Corals">
An integral part of nature. Think of even those on the surface: the aesthetics of the flower, the harmony of flight and the music of birds. On the magic of the transformation of insects or ... That's a lot.

And if we start paying attention to this, our world will become bigger, deeper and more interesting. Perhaps it is here that a person can find the harmony that is missing him. Who knows?