Sea fan is a colorful coral with a flat, fanlike shape. It has a strong, flexible core (internal skeleton) that branches to form a lacy network. A sea fan actually consists of a colony of individual coral animals called polyps. Each polyp has a cylinder-shaped body, at the top end of which is a mouth surrounded by eight tentacles. The polyps grow from the soft tissues that cover the skeleton. Sea fans live in tropical and subtropical reefs around the world. They are often colored brilliant red, yellow, orange, or purple.
See also Coral; Coral reef.
