1. 11. Sea Anemones and Coral Animals
Invertebrates
11. Sea Anemones and Coral Animals

2. Have you ever seen flowers called anemones?
There are water animals that look like these flowers

3. These animals are called sea anemones
They belong to a group of invertebrate water animals known as coelenterates

4. A kind of invertebrate water animals
Vocabulary:
coelenterate
A kind of invertebrate water animals

5. Some of the world’s most colorful and beautiful sea animals are coelenterates

6. A sea anemone has many tentacles, or arms
The tentacles have special cells with poison in them

7. Then, the tentacles take the food into the sea anemone’s mouth
The sea anemone stings passing tiny fish or crustaceans with its tentacles
Then, the tentacles take the food into the sea anemone’s mouth

8. Sea anemones can be found everywhere in the oceans
Most of them live along the seacoast, where they attach themselves to rocks and shells

9. Like sea anemones, coral animals are coelenterates
But unlike sea anemones, coral animals have skeletons

10. A framework that supports the body of an animal
Vocabulary:
skeleton
A framework that supports the body of an animal

11. Coral animals are usually less than 1 inch wide
At one end of the coral animal’s body is a mouth

12. Tiny tentacles catch even tinier plankton, which the coral animals feed on

13. Coral animals live together in a colony
Vocabulary:
colony
A group of animals that live together

14. The coral animals attach themselves to each other by thin tissue
A coral colony can be very big

15. As coral animals reproduce, the older ones die
Their skeletons stay where they are, and new coral animals attach themselves to the skeletons

16. As time passes, the colony grows
Colonies can grow in different shapes

17. Some look like heads of cabbage, and others look like trees without leaves

18. Coral colonies grow only in warm salt water
They can be found, for example, in the South Pacific Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea

19. Many colonies can grow together to make a wall, called a coral reef
Vocabulary:
Coral reef
A wall formed when large colonies of coral animals grow together

20. A reef can go all the way from the bottom of the ocean
to the surface of the water

21. The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is the world’s largest coral reef
It is about 1,250 miles long