Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef

Breck (0:00)

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Imagine you're swimming in the bluest, clearest water you've ever seen. All around you, bright fish zip by, and giant coral towers stretch up from the seafloor like underwater castles.

Sunlight dances over everything, making the colors shine and sparkle. You dive down and hear soft, snapping, and clicking sounds. That's the coral and the tiny animals that live there. You're in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. It's one of the most amazing places on Earth. The Great Barrier Reef is the world's biggest coral reef system. It's so huge you can even see it from outer space. The reef is more than 1,400 miles long. That's about as far as driving from New York City to Miami, Florida. It's not just one reef, it's made up of almost 3,000 smaller reefs and over 900 tiny islands. The reef sits in the Coral Sea right next to the northeastern side of Australia. The creatures that build the reef are called coral polyps. They're tiny animals, not plants. Each polyp looks a little like a soft, upside down jelly bean with waving arms. The polyps live close together, they make hard shells around themselves, and those shells pile up over hundreds or even thousands of years. That's what makes the reef. When you see big coral shapes, you're looking at the skeletons of millions of these animals. Lots of different creatures call the Great Barrier Reef home. There are more than 1,500 kinds of fish. Some are as small as your thumb, and some like the giant grouper can be bigger than you.

There are sea turtles, dolphins, and dugongs, which are kind of like gentle sea cows. More than 30 kinds of whales and dolphins swim through the reef. You might see clownfish playing in sea anemones, just like in the movie Finding Nemo.

There are also shy sea snakes and fast moving sharks. The reef is also full of birds. Many seabirds use the tiny islands to nest. The white-bellied sea eagle soars above, looking for a fish to snatch.

The islands are covered in plants like mangroves and seagrass. These plants help keep the water clean and give animals places to hide. People have known about the Great Barrier Reef for a very long time. The first people to live near the reef were the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They've lived in Australia for more than 60,000 years. They learned how to fish and gather food from the reef. They made up stories and songs about the creatures and places they found there.

Some of their old paintings show turtles, dugongs and other reef animals.

European explorers first sailed near the reef in the 1700s.

In 1770, a British ship called the Endeavour hit part of the reef. The captain, James Cook, didn't know the reef was there. His ship got stuck on the coral and the crew had to work hard to fix it. They were lucky to get away safely. That's when Europeans realized just how big and tricky the reef could be.

Over the years, more people visited the reef. Some came to fish. Some wanted to collect shells or sea cucumbers. In the late 1800s, people learned that the reef was full of pearls. Divers risked their lives to search the deep water for shiny pearl shells. They wore heavy helmets and thick suits. Sometimes, Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders worked as divers too. It was a dangerous job, but the pearls were worth a lot of money.