stony coral

American  

noun

1. a true coral consisting of numerous anthozoan polyps embedded in the calcareous material that they secrete.

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stony coral British  

noun

1. any coral of the order Madreporaria, having a calcareous skeleton, aggregations of which form reefs and islands

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Etymology

Origin of stony coral

First recorded in 1610–20

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

stony coral

During outbreaks of their carnivorous adult phase, crown-of-thorns starfish dine pervasively on stony coral, leaving lifeless skeletons across the reef.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 18, 2023

Now, over 20 species of stony corals such as brain and boulder corals — what Kettle calls the “key backbone of the reef” — have come down with stony coral tissue loss disease.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 16, 2022

“Their stony coral buddies don’t do a great job with producing sheets and trees,” Edmunds says.

From Science Magazine ● Jul. 12, 2022

The most widely distributed and well-studied is Lophelia pertusa, a branching stony coral that begins life as a tiny larva, settles on hard substrate and grows into a bushy colony.

From Salon ● Dec. 9, 2018

The stony coral surrounds and protects the soft body of the animal, and may either be a single cell, for one animal, or an aggregation of58 such cells, constituting a rounded or branching mass.

From The Chain of Life in Geological Time A Sketch of the Origin and Succession of Animals and Plants by Dawson, Sir J. William