Rapid Fire
Cryo-Born Baby Corals
- 13 Jan 2025
- 1 min read
The world's first cryo-born baby corals have been successfully introduced into the Great Barrier Reef, marking a groundbreaking achievement in coral restoration and conservation.
- Australian scientists used cutting-edge cryopreservation to fertilize coral eggs with cryopreserved sperm collected from the Great Barrier Reef.
- Scientists grew the corals in the National Sea Simulator before transferring them to specially designed ‘coral cradles’ on the Reef.
- It aims to introduce heat-tolerant corals to protect reefs from climate change and rising ocean temperatures.
- The CryoDiversity Bank in Australia holds the world’s largest collection of frozen coral sperm from 32 species, collected annually since 2011.
- Coral Reefs: Corals are invertebrates from the class Anthozoa, phylum Cnidaria.
- Reefs are formed by colonies of polyps that secrete limestone skeletons and rely on symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae) for nutrition.
- Soft corals are species that do not produce the massive calcium carbonate skeletons needed to form coral reefs. Only hard corals make reefs.
Read More: World's Largest Deep Sea Coral Reef
