Warm-water corals like the brain coral live in shallow tropical ocean waters worldwide. Corals are marine invertebrates and the brain coral is named for it labyrinth-like surface resembling a brain. With extraordinary smarts, they are in the class Anthozoa meaning flower animals and live in compact colonies of genetically identical individual polyps. They secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton engineering the structure for their soft animal colony. They are both animal and plant and create their own foundation as they grow, typically building on older generations. 

They share a symbiotic relationship with a form of plankton, dinoflagellate zooxanthellae that lives in its tissue. The zooxanthellae photosynthesizes bringing energy to the coral and in a reciprocal energy exchange, the coral offers protection for this special phytoplankton. 

Our corals as well as all life in our oceans are in grave danger from ocean acidification, rising temperatures, toxins, drilling and more. They need our protection and we need their ecosystem and extraordinary life-support of our blue planet.