Fossilised colonial coral, Mulranny, County Mayo, Ireland
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Fossilised colonial coral dating from up to 359 millennia ago when Ireland was still a tropical swamp. Later this region turned into an Arctic wasteland, before warming up enough to allow for the early hunter-gatherers. Nowadays, colonial coral fossils can be easily found in limestone areas such as Mulranny in County Mayo, where I found this example peeping through the pebbles. 

Corals are marine invertebrates in the class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria. They typically live in compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.

A coral “group” is a colony of myriad genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in length. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening. An exoskeleton is excreted near the base. Over many generations, the colony thus creates a large skeleton that is characteristic of the species. Individual heads grow by asexual reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning: polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously over a period of one to several nights around a full moon.

Coral reefs are under stress around the world. In particular, coral mining, agricultural and urban runoff, pollution (organic and inorganic), overfishing, blast fishing, disease, and the digging of canals and access into islands and bays are localized threats to coral ecosystems. Broader threats are sea temperature rise, sea level rise and pH changes from ocean acidification, all associated with greenhouse gas emissions. In 1998, 16% of the world’s reefs died as a result of increased water temperature.

Source: Wikipedia