You know that corals are more dangerous than you might think! steemit

The dazzling beauty of coral reefs submerged in a bluish sea is for many something like paradise. However, this idyllic landscape hides a dark side, writes commentator Mary Colwell. Coral reefs are "beautiful places," says Ken Johnson, a specialist in coral reefs at the Natural History Museum in London. They have complex three-dimensional structures and a great diversity of living beings that reflect color and movement, explains the scientist.The reefs usually surround coral islands with white sands and gentle waves. The Scottish R. M. Ballantyne captured this idyll in his novel "The Island of Coral", of century XIX, that tells the history of three young people that sail by the Pacific Ocean "

At last we come to the islands of Coral of the Pacific, I will never forget the joy with which I looked - when we passed by - its white, pure, extraordinary coasts and its green palms that looked bright and beautiful under the sun. Other writers, such as James Montgomery, noted the industrious life of a reef in which millions of plants and animals work endlessly to create a harmonious environment in which human civilization could be molded.

"Paradise develops gradually from hard work," says Ralph Pite, a professor of English literature at the University of Bristol. Just as successful British society and the great empire developed out of the hard work of the workers in their factories and their homes."

Silent Enemy

However, science forces us to test this image of paradise that does not seem to be such. A coral reef can also be understood as a wall of mouths. Each small polyp is a predator that can project its stomach to its neighbors - if they get too close - and devour them right there.You can also create a web of drool to catch the small creatures that float around or catch them with their tentacles and bring them closer to their stomach. Humans may be too big to succumb to these techniques, but many ships, including Captain Cook's HMS Endevour, sank because of skeletons of coral-calcium corals that destroy wooden shells.

Nuclear tests

As more things were discovered about coral reefs, especially with the advent of scuba diving, deeper canyons were explored and a new image emerged around corals. The islands of the Bikini atoll, where 23 nuclear tests were carried out, can not yet be inhabited.

"The coral reef began to look like the dangerous urban spaces of the Victorian world, filled with corridors, alleys and dark corners where all kinds of hazards lurked," says Pite.

Then, between 1946 and 1958, a new use was found for the coral islands that surround a lagoon in the Pacific: Bikini atoll became the epicenter of 23 nuclear tests. One of the bombs detonated there had a power a thousand times higher than the one launched on Hiroshima. To this day, the islands are uninhabitable.

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