Coral Reefs: Secret Cities of the Sea, Natural History Museum - exhibition review

This strangely beautiful exhibition contains a spectacular array of coral
OK coral: reef dwellers in the exhibition aquarium (Picture: Kevin Webb/NHM Image Resources)
Philippa Stockley31 March 2015

What goes on in the crystal waters surrounding coral reefs is horrid, if the Natural History Museum’s new exhibition of 250 items is to be believed. Sucking, slurping, grinding, and an awful lot of killing by — to pick just one culprit — the blue-ringed octopus. Only a hand-span long, this little fellow, who literally lights up when angry, apparently has enough venom to kill 27 men (although that’s never been tested).

The show contains every sort of coral you could imagine and many you couldn’t, such as brain coral, the immense, lacey fan, or the bizarre black whip. They’re displayed in deliberately old-fashioned cases, alongside some of the other animals that thrive nearby, such as the giant clam — the one Botticelli’s Venus stood in. Its half-shell is spectacular (inhabited, it weighed 300kg).

Spectacular: half of the giant clam shell Botticelli’s Venus stood in

But the highlight is an aquarium that contains living coral. It’s oddly sited near the exit — for it brings the whole exhibition to life. Coral comes in two forms, soft and hard. The hard sort, with its familiar shapes and muted, mossy colours (when alive) stays still. But the soft ones — children will love this — move and sway, and, in the case of mouse-fingered whisker coral, appears to be delicately picking bits of lint off itself.

Other soft corals, some with the ends of their voracious polyps lit by interior chemistry, move in different ways. At last, one grasps that coral is alive. Not just alive but hungry and sex-mad, so that when staghorn coral is in full spate, the waters around the Barrier Reef “get murky with sperm and eggs”.

Reefs support 500,000 jobs worldwide and are ecologically vital, but pollution, overfishing and illegal trade threaten them. This is an educational show, as well as being strangely beautiful.

Until September 13 (020 7942 5000, nhm.ac.uk/coralreefs)

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