On a quiet moonlight night in the year 1890, the British-Indian liner Quetta was traveling through the Torres Strait near Thursday Island in northern Australia. This strait is located at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef complex. Suddenly the ship hit a reef...

Closeup view of part of a coral tip of Acropora formosa from the lagoon of Enewetak Atoll. Each one of the "cups" on the tip harbors a single coral organism. The tip is about 25 mm long.