Brain coral is a

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often con ...

given to various

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

s in the

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

Mussidae and Merulinidae, so called due to their generally

spheroid A spheroid, also known as an ellipsoid of revolution or rotational ellipsoid, is a quadric surface (mathematics), surface obtained by Surface of revolution, rotating an ellipse about one of its principal axes; in other words, an ellipsoid with t ...

shape and grooved surface which resembles a

brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...

. Each head of coral is formed by a

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

of genetically identical polyps which secrete a hard skeleton of

calcium carbonate Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is a common substance found in Rock (geology), rocks as the minerals calcite and aragonite, most notably in chalk and limestone, eggshells, gastropod shells, shellfish skel ...

; this makes them important

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in group ...

builders like other stony corals in the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

Scleractinia Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mo ...

. Brain corals are found in shallow warm water coral reefs in all the world's oceans. They are part of the phylum

Cnidaria Cnidaria ( ) is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic invertebrates found both in fresh water, freshwater and marine environments (predominantly the latter), including jellyfish, hydroid (zoology), hydroids, ...

, in a class called

Anthozoa Anthozoa is one of the three subphyla of Cnidaria, along with Medusozoa and Endocnidozoa. It includes Sessility (motility), sessile marine invertebrates and invertebrates of brackish water, such as sea anemones, Scleractinia, stony corals, soft c ...

or "flower animals". The lifespan of the largest brain corals is 900 years. Colonies can grow as large as 1.8 m (6 ft) or more in height. Brain corals extend their tentacles to catch food at night. During the day, they use their tentacles for protection by wrapping them over the grooves on their surface. The surface is hard and offers good protection against fish or

hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its ...

s. Branching corals, such as staghorn corals, grow more rapidly, but are more vulnerable to storm damage. Like other genera of corals, brain corals feed on small drifting animals, and also receive nutrients provided by the algae which live within their tissues. The behavior of one of the most common genera, '' Favia'', is semiaggressive; it will sting other corals with its extended sweeper tentacles during the night. The grooved surface of brain corals has been used by scientists to investigate methods of giving spherical wheels appropriate grip strength.David Gibson
Can a rubber ball reinvent the wheel?
BBC, 8 March 2016

Genera

*'' Barabattoia'' Yabe and Sugiyama, 1941 *'' Bikiniastrea'' Wells, 1954 *'' Caulastraea'' Dana, 1846 – candy cane coral *'' Colpophyllia'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 – boulder brain coral or large-grooved brain coral *'' Cyphastrea'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 *'' Diploastrea'' Matthai, 1914 – diploastrea brain coral or honeycomb coral *'' Diploria'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 – grooved brain coral *'' Echinopora'' Lamarck, 1816 *'' Erythrastrea'' Pichon, Scheer and Pillai, 1983 *'' Favia'' Oken, 1815 *'' Favites'' Link, 1807 – moon, pineapple, brain, closed brain, star, worm, or honeycomb coral *''

Goniastrea ''Goniastrea'' is a genus (biology), genus of Scleractinia, stony corals in the family (biology), family Merulinidae. Species belonging to the genus ''Goniastrea'' forms massive colonies, usually spherical or elongate, with well developed palifor ...

'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 *'' Leptastrea'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 *'' Leptoria'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 – great star coral *'' Manicina'' Ehrenberg, 1834 *'' Montastraea'' de Blainville, 1830 – great star coral *'' Moseleya'' Quelch, 1884 *'' Oulastrea'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 *'' Oulophyllia'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 *'' Parasimplastrea'' Sheppard, 1985 *'' Platygyra'' Ehrenberg, 1834 *'' Plesiastrea'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848 * Pseudodiploria Ellis & Solander, 1786 *'' Solenastrea'' Milne-Edwards and Haime, 1848

Gallery

File:Brain coral spawning.jpg, Brain coral

spawning Spawn is the Egg cell, eggs and Spermatozoa, sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water (fresh or marine); the physical act is ...

File:Mozgovity koral.jpg, Brain coral,

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

near Esperanza on the island of

Vieques, Puerto Rico Vieques (; ), officially Isla de Vieques, is an island, Culebra barrio-pueblo, town and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality of Puerto Rico, and together with Culebra, Puerto Rico, Culebra, it is geographically part of the Spanish Virgin ...

File:Koral mozgovity hranica.jpg, Black band disease on a brain coral in

near Bahia de la Chiva on the island of Vieques File:Close-up of a brain coral near Nusa Kode Island, Indonesia.JPG, Close-up of a brain coral near Nusa Kode Island,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

File:Diploria_closeup_FL.jpg, Closeup of ''Diploria strigosa'', Snapper Ledge,

Florida Keys The Florida Keys are a coral island, coral cay archipelago off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami a ...

File:Diploria_SanSalvador1.jpg, ''Diploria clivosa'' (dead),

San Salvador Island San Salvador Island, previously Watling's Island, is an islands of the Bahamas, island and districts of The Bahamas, district of The Bahamas, famed for being the probable location of Christopher Columbus's first landing of the Americas on 12 Oc ...

, Bahamas File:Fossil Reef Windley Key 1.jpg,

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

''Diploria'' at the Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park, of

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

age File:Diploria Strigosa.jpg, ''Diploria strigosa'', in the near shore waters of

Key West, Florida Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida, at the southern end of the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Sigsbee Park, Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Islan ...

File:Diploria labyrinthiformis.jpg, Close up of ''Diploria labyrinthiformis'' with visible polyps,

References

{{corals Scleractinia Invertebrate common names Polyphyletic groups