Cryo-Born Baby Corals | 13 Jan 2025

Source: OM

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.