Birds also feast on coral reef animals.
There are two types of coral, hard coral and soft coral. There are coral reefs off the eastern coast of Africa, off the southern coast of India, in the Red Sea, and off the coasts of northeast and northwest Australia and on to Polynesia. There are also coral reefs off the coast of Florida, USA, to the Caribbean, and down to Brazil. They grow on the continental shelf in shallow water. Barrier reefs grow parallel to shorelines, but farther out, usually separated from the land by a deep lagoon.