Thursday, October 18, 2007

Sex By Moonlight


From NYT:

[A]t night, just after the full moon, under warm tropic breezes, the corals dissolve in an orgy of reproduction, sowing waters with trillions of eggs and sperm that swirl and dance and merge to form new life. The frenzy can leave pink flotsam. . . . When I talk about thousands of reefs in the Caribbean releasing their spawn within minutes of each other during a specific phase of the moon, people marvel and ask, ‘How do they do it?’” said Alina M. Szmant, a coral expert at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. “My answer is always, ‘It’s a mystery.’”

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