Each coral animal, or polyp, is about the size of a pencil eraser. A coral polyp has a soft body, stomach, and mouth surrounded by tentacles.
Corals are hunters.
Like their cousins, the jellyfishes, they use their tentacles to capture their prey, small drifting plants and animals called plankton. Some people are suprised to find out that corals are animals because many look more like plants. There is something amazing about corals that helps to explain their plantlike shapes. Scientists have discovered that coral animals are also part plant. Imagine tiny green plants growing under your skin.