TOP FACTS ABOUT GREAT BARRIER REEF

HOW BIG THE GREAT BARRIER REEF IS

• The Great Barrier Reef is a popular tourist destination with over two million visitors each year.
• It is one of the seven natural wonders of the world.
• It's greater in size than the United Kingdom, Holland and Switzerland combined.
• You can see the Great Barrier Reef from outer space.

SPECIES IN THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

• Thirty species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises have been recorded in the Great Barrier Reef.
• Around 10 percent of the world’s total fish species can be found just within the Great Barrier Reef.
• 215 species of birds (including 22 species of seabirds and 32 species of shorebirds) visit the reef or nest or roost on the islands.
• More than 1,500 fish species live on the reef.

HOW OLD THE GREAT BARRIER REEF IS?

• The Great Barrier Reef is an extremely ancient, enormous host of living things, composed of living coral growing on dead coral dating back perhaps as much as twenty million years.

THREATS TO THE GREAT BARRIER REED

• Climate change is perhaps the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef.
• Warmer ocean temperatures put stress on coral and lead to coral bleaching.
• The Great Barrier Reef has experienced two mass coral bleaching events in 1998 and 2002. Bleaching was more severe in 2002, when aerial surveys showed that over 50% of reefs experienced some coral bleaching.

COMPOSITIONS OF CORAL REEFS

• The Great Barrier Reef is composed of the skeletons of coral which are marine and invertebrate animals
• Each individual coral is referred to as a polyp
• As time passes the coral reef grows as the new coral grows over the dead
• The biggest coral reef is the one and only Great Barrier Reef
• The Great Barrier Reef stretches 2,300 kilometers
• It is one of the original 8 wonders of the world