Name/Title
Coral (fossil)Entry/Object ID
2011.57.68Description
Description: Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Family: Acroporidae
Genus: Montipora
Common Name: Coral
Age: Devonian
Location: Unknown
Description: Large fossil coral with multiple symetrical splaying throughout. Color is dull pink to orange with a very fine grained, sandy matrix, light gray in color.
Physical Characteristics:
Corals are marine organisms in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans, which secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head", which appears to be a single organism, is a colony of myriad genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is typically only a few millimeters in diameter. Over many generations, the colony secretes a skeleton that is characteristic of the species. Individual heads grow by asexual reproduction of individual 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.
Family: Acroporidae
Genus: Montipora
Kingdom: Animalia (Animals)
Class: Anthozoa
Phylum: CnidariaCollection
Museum Collection of FossilsAcquisition
Accession
2011.57Source or Donor
Museum Collection of FossilsAcquisition Method
Long-term LoanDimensions
Width
6-3/4 inDepth
5-11/16 inLength
8-1/4 inLocation
Location
Container
CenterDrawer
Front Row / BottomShelf
RightCabinet
Case # 51Wall
NorthRoom
Delmar Smith HallBuilding
Crater Rock MuseumCategory
Permanent
