video

Slow Life: Time-Lapse on the Coral Reef

Daniel Stoupin

How does a coral spend its day? Most of us would say: not doing much. To the human eye, a coral looks relatively still, waiting in the current and hoping some food will run into its tentacles. But this video "Slow Life" by marine scientist Daniel Stoupin reveals the unseen world of "unmoving" animals coral reefsā€”unseen because they move too slowly for us to grasp. With their movements sped up and the video zoomed in, you can see corals, sponges, worms, urchins and more going through their days, growing, eating, breathing and squirming.

Stoupin stitched together 150,000 photographs to make this time-lapse video, which will help you appreciate the beauty and activity beneath the water. "Time lapse cinematography reveals a whole different world full of hypnotic motion and my idea was to make coral reef life more spectacular and thus closer to our awareness," he wrote at his blog. Read more about the animals in the video and Stoupin's process on the blog.