What is the common characteristic of plants and corals?

Question

What is the common characteristic of plants and corals?

Answer 1

Corals are animals and plants are ... not. However they obviously look similar. In both cases that similarity is the result of a common decision about how to survive. Both plants and corals spend most of their lives anchored to a single location. That strategy causes them to have similar problems and they have come up with similar solutions. The main problem they face is how to get food. For plants light is food and for corals bits of stuff drifting in the water is food. In both cases a branching sort of structure gets them out where the food is. That is why they look similar.