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Coral Castle

December 23, 2012

Seen through a microscope, this corrugated coral seems like a battlemented castle defending itself against tiny missiles. In fact, the coral will catch and eat any of the little arrowhead-shaped crustaceans that get caught on the coral’s thin white digestive “mesenterial” filaments. This coral was collected in Panama during a field course for MIT/WHOI Joint Program students taught by biologists Jesús Pineda and Ann Tarrant. (Photo by Liz Drenkard, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)