Honorable Mention: Dinner Time

Photography by Camila Rimoldi Ibanez, undergraduate student,
Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College

Coral reefs are extremely biodiverse underwater cities that support roughly 25% of all marine life whilst only taking up less than 1% of the ocean floor. To sustain such diverse systems in a small area, most organisms found in coral reefs, including corals, have developed ways of living with each other. A singular coral colony comprises hundreds of individual polyps all living in harmony with each other, responding and acting as one organism. In this image, the polyps are fully extended and feeding as a response to being exposed to food in their water system. The picture was taken as part of a project at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Laboratory of Integrative Marine and Coastal Ecology that is examining the sounds coral polyps make when fed.