Young mushroom corals like this one start life on reefs, lurking for tiny prey. But before they get too heavy to nudge themselves along, they make one great migration off the reef, propelling themselves by puffing up on the outer rim of their dome-shaped body and, as the body pulses, jolting forward, as seen in this time-lapse video. It’s slow — an hour or two of “walking” couldn’t even cross a dinner plate — but eventually, they find some deeper place to settle on sand.
Read more: www.sciencenews.org/article/mushroom-coral-walk-no-legs
Video: B.M. Lewis et al/PLOS One 2025 (CC-BY 4.0)
