Coral (Books)

Coral is mentioned briefly in the How to Train Your Dragon Book series.

Description
Coral is a collective term for simple polyp marine animals that may live individually or in colonies, and which grown a protective calcium carbonate shell. Colonies can form vast underwater structures and create a complex habitat and ecosystem for other organisms.

Most coral lives in temperate and tropical ocean waters, but some - called 'Cold-water' or 'Deep-water' coral - live in lightless deeper and colder waters. They can occur in the North Atlantic and North Sea along the British Isles and Scandinavia. The most common cold-water coral is Lophelia pertusa. This species can form reefs. Generally Lophelia pertusa is white, but can also range to reddish-orange. These reefs are home to a large number of other animal species, including many economically important fish.

Function
Coral does not have a use in the Book series, but appears as a background organism of the sea.

How to Train Your Dragon
Coral is mentioned once in the Epilogue of this Book, when Hiccup looks back on his youth, and the submerged shield of Stoick with the Green Death's tooth sticking out of it.

"... and I see in my mind's eye a shield, strangely changed by a rich encrusting of jewel-like barnacles and cold-water coral, with an eight foot tooth sticking right out of the middle of it."

- Book 1