Days of Diving For three weeks, my team and I explore around the islands. I dive three times a day. Sometimes, curious fish bite my air bubbles. Oſt en, though, I wear a special oxygen tank.
It recycles the air I breathe out. T at way, I don’t make bubbles. So I don’t look as scary to the fish. I also can stay underwater for two hours. I have lots of time to observe life here. T e base of this ecosystem is a coral reef.
Here, it covers 90% of the seafloor. Some coral formations look like roses. Others look like tree branches. Yet these aren’t plants. Millions of small animals called coral
polyps build coral reefs. T ey have soſt bodies and tiny tentacles. Each one builds a hard skeleton around itself. Polyps build on top of one another. Skeleton by skeleton, a reef grows.
Tiny Universe T ese coral formations create habitats, or homes, for many sea creatures. I see that on one dive. I’m floating over a bit of reef the size of a watermelon. At first, it looks empty. T en a bright yellow lemonpeel angelfish
darts out at me. Blue lines circle its bulging eyes. It looks as surprised to see me as I am to see it. T e longer I watch this spot, the more I see.
I see a flame hawkfish and a tiny crab with red speckles. A whole community of organisms lives in this one small place. Wherever I look, I see life. A lot of it is
hungry. Coral polyps snatch algae out of the water. T ey store it in their tentacles. T e algae make food for the polyps. Parrotfish crack open corals. T ey grind the skeletons into sand and swallow the algae and polyps inside. Below me, schools of chubs stir up clouds
of sand. T ey’re chewing algae off the seafloor. Surgeonfish zip in and gobble up the chubs’ poop. In the community of critters that live in a healthy reef, nothing goes to waste.
An Ocean Food
This tiny lemonpeel angelfi sh pops out of its hiding place in corals.
6 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXTREME EXPLORER
algae
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