What are coral polyps?

Question

What are coral polyps?

Answer 1

Corals are marine organisms from the class Anthozoa and exist as small sea anemone–like polyps, typically in colonies of many identical individuals. The group includes the important reef builders that are found in tropical oceans, which secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.

A coral "head", commonly perceived to be a single organism, is formed from thousands of individual but genetically identical polyps, each polyp only a few millimeters in diameter. Over thousands of generations, the polyps lay down a skeleton that is characteristic of their species. A head of coral grows by asexual reproduction of the individual polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning, with corals of the same species releasing gametes simultaneously over a period of one to several nights around a full moon.

For more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral

Answer 2

look it p like your students do

Answer 3

In zoology, a polyp is one of two forms of individuals found in many species of cnidarians. The two are the polyp or hydroid and the medusa. Polyps are approximately cylindrical, elongated on the axis of the body. The aboral end is attached either to the substrate by means of a disc-like holdfast if the polyp is solitary, or is connected to other polyps, either directly or indirectly, if the polyp is part of a colony. The oral end bears the mouth, and is surrounded by a circlet of tentacles.