This website is about the spooky creature called Dilploria labyrinthiformis, otherwise known as         Grooved Brain Coral!

    Brain coral gets its name from the unusual grooves and designs it has on its surface. These grooves and designs make it look like a human brain.  Brain coral is made from genetically identical polyps that form a colony.  In that colony the polyps excrete a calcium carbonate skeleton which makes the outer layer of these brain corals.
    This past summer I took a trip down to Key Largo, FL. There I witnessed my first brain coral.  I had seen them in pictures and heard about them but seeing a brain coral for the first time in person was magnificent.  I was told that brain coral only grew maybe between a centimeter and an inch in a given year. That just gave me an idea of how old these big 5 ft brain coral were. 
     I saw a lot of fish that inhabited the brain coral, both friend and predator. This included the famous parrotfish which is a big predator of brain coral, a Damselfish, and a beautiful black and yellow angelfish.  

Along them I also saw some barracuda, but they weren't inhabiting the brain coral. I also witnessed a lot of brain coral that had the top of them eroded off. Where the errosion occurred there was another coral or garden of other living creatures growing.  It proved how much one living creature, especially a coral that can't move around freely, has such an impact on these ecosystems. 

    I hope you find all you would like to know about Diploria labyrinthiformis from this website and if you have any questions feel free to contact me in the About Me section!

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