For Keiki (Kids)
Grab your crayons!
Here are a few pages that you can print out and color. (coloring pages illustrated by Katherine Orr from a Pacific Reef Coloring Book. Text is also from that book).
Click on the images to get a larger version to print out.
The
reef at night.
Coral
animals spread out their tentacles to feed, and brittle starfish come
out of their hiding places. Spiny lobsters and octopi come out to hunt
for food and the Uhu, or parrotfish, wedges itself into a crack in
the rocks and blows itself a cocoon of mucus to sleep in. The mucus
cocoon helps to hide the scent of the parrotfish from predators.
Fish that
sleep during the day come out to feed at night. Small red cardinalfish
awake to eat plakton. The reef at night looks very different than during
the day.
How
are reefs formed?
From time
to time polyps produce eggs and sperm. These join to form a baby coral
animal, called a planula (1), that drifts in the sea. If the planula
finds a clean, hard surface, it attaches itself and turns into a polyp
(2). The polyp grows and multiplies by budding (3). In this way, corals
spread from one place to another.
Dead coral
rock provides a hard surface where young coral can settle, but many
other creatures settle there too. Often plants and sponges cover the
surface before new polyps can attach. Or, plants may grow over young
polyps and smother them. Reef animals such as sea urchins, parrotfish,
snails, and limpets graze on the plants and sponges, making room for
new corals to settle and grow.
Most corals
grow about one half inch or one centimeter per year, so it takes hundreds
of years for a coral reef to develop (4). Without the help of animals
that feed on fast-growing plants, a reef could never develop.
Pacific
reef members: the swimmers
Coral reef
fish vary widely in shape, color, size and behavior. Some travel long
distances, while others stay within a limited reef area.
Blue jacks
are strong swimmers. They do not shelter in the reef, but may visit
to hunt small fish for food. Some butterflyfish, by contrast may spend
their whole lives near a single clump of coral. A school of damselfish
swims above the coral, feeding on plankton.
The
reef during the day.
Two butterflyfish
feed on a rock covered with limu (seaweed). Nearby, a moray eel pauses
as a cleaner wrasse nibbles at the small parasites living among the
teeth of the eel. The eel does not eat or chase the cleaner wrasse
away. Instead the eel encourages the wrasse to remove pests by keeping
its mouth open and remaining very still. In this way both fish benefit,
the eel gets rid on parasites, and the wrasse gets a meal. This is
called commensalism. Many creatures that live among the reef have developed
different types of close relationships. In order to survive, one species
must depend on the other.
The parrotfish
makes scraping sounds as it bites chunks of dead coral, which are covered
with a green film of plants called algae. The parrotfish digests algae
and passes out coral skeleton as sand. It swims on as a school of milletseed
butterflyfish glides past. Some butterlfyfish also feed on algae. Their
grazing helps keep the fast-growing plants from covering the reef.
The
coral reef is a living system.
Every plant
and animal on the reef has a special role to play. Some animals are
active by day; others are active by night. Each has its own living
space. Each has certain kinds of food, and in turn may also be a source
of food for others. Some animals create homes for others to live in.
Many have close relationships, each providing something the other needs.
The coral
reef is a balanced system where all things have thier special place
and function. In a system, all things are related. All the plants and
animals of the reef depend on each other.
Our whole
earth is a system too. Does this mean coral reefs are important to
us, even if we don't live near one?
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