A similar experience of animal curiosity is reported by dugong researchers in Shark Bay in Western Australia. Yet the zoologist Paul Anderson and his colleagues reported an unusual experience as they snorkeled in the midst of a large herd of dugongs. At first the swimmers were ap- proaching the herd from a boat at anchor. A P E observed the dugongs, so they were observed in turn. Whether dugongs identified some of the scientists is unknown.
Coral polyps do more than feed and repro- duce.
They have in place adaptations and survival mechanisms that are of value to them and to species that have evolved along- side. The coral even has a primitive system of defense of territory. When the polyps at the margins of a coral discover a competitor, the coral acts to defend itself. These strands wave about in the contested space, se- creting their digestive juices just as they did in the gut, and when they find the intruding polyps, they eat them if they are from other species. They do not eat their own.