3066) The "Stony Coral ("Scleractinia), Republic of Austria (Oesterreich Republik): Fifth Coin in the "Luminous Marine Life Coin Series": A 3 Euro Copper-Alloy Coin features this Underwater Marine invertebrate: Date/Year of Coin issue: 08.11.2023:
Links to "Luminous Marine Life" Coin Series:
With this Coin Series "Luminous Marine Life", one dives into the depths of the oceans.
- To celebrate the "United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development", this Coin Series embarks on an undersea adventure that shows just how fascinating and colourful the underwater world can be.
With a mintage of 65,000, of the twelve innovative 3 Euro Coloured Coins in the Series, four will be issued each year over 3 years.
As improbable and magical as the sea creatures featured on the coins may seem, they really do exist.
Even though some of them live in the perpetual darkness of the deep seas, where no ray of sunlight penetrates, they all have extraordinary luminous qualities. They flash, sparkle and glow and change colour when necessary.
The same applies to the coins themselves, which glow when exposed to ultraviolet light in a way that is both exciting and piques our sense of scientific curiosity.
A dedicated ultraviolet torch will help the viewer to experience the charming creatures of Luminous Marine Life in full.
The Stony Coral (Scleractinia) is the Fifth Coin in the Series):
Scleractinia, (also called "Stony Corals" or "Hard Corals"), are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton.
The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mouth is fringed with tentacles. Although some species are solitary, most are colonial.
The founding polyp settles and starts to secrete calcium carbonate to protect its soft body. Solitary corals can be as much as 25 cm (10 in) across but in colonial species the polyps are usually only a few millimetres in diameter.
These polyps reproduce asexually by budding, but remain attached to each other, forming a multi-polyp colony of clones with a common skeleton, which may be up to several metres in diameter or height according to species.
The shape and appearance of each coral colony depends not only on the species, but also on its location, depth, the amount of water movement and other factors.
Many shallow-water corals contain symbiont unicellular organisms known as "zooxanthellae" within their tissues.
These give their colour to the coral which thus may vary in hue depending on what species of symbiont it contains.
Stony corals are closely related to sea anemones, and like them are armed with stinging cells known as cnidocytes. Corals reproduce both sexually and asexually.
Most species release gametes into the sea where fertilisation takes place, and the planula larvae drift as part of the plankton, but a few species brood their eggs. Asexual reproduction is mostly by fragmentation, when part of a colony becomes detached and reattaches elsewhere.
Stony corals occur in all the world's oceans. Much of the framework of modern coral reefs is formed by scleractinians.
Reef-building or hermatypic corals are mostly colonial, most of these are zooxanthellate and are found in the shallow waters into which sunlight penetrates. Other corals that do not form reefs may be solitary or colonial; some of these occur at abyssal depths where no light reaches.
Stony corals first appeared in the Middle Triassic, but their relationship to the tabulate and rugose corals of the Paleozoic is currently unresolved.
In modern times stony corals numbers are expected to decline due to the effects of global warming and ocean acidification.
Hermatypic or reef-building corals can have the most diverse growth forms.
Most stony coral species excrete calcium carbonate at their base and a calcareous skeleton is formed through a symbiosis with zooxanthellae, unicellular microalgae.
They reproduce by forming new coral calyxes on top of old ones or when coral polyps become independent. If undisturbed they will continue doing so as long as the seawater remains clean and there is enough sunlight.
Some species of stony coral can live for several hundred years, which may explain why at certain points in the history of Earth, stony coral formed entire islands and archipelagos over thousands of years, such as the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Maldives.
Moreover, about 600,000 years ago, corals began to build the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. Presently, with its 359 species of stony coral, the reef is the largest structure created by living creatures on earth and provides habitat for a multitude of other species.
Worldwide coral mortality has been linked to increased surface water temperatures caused by global heating. Severe ‘coral bleaching’ occurred in 1998 after an occurrence of the El Niño phenomenon in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans when temperatures were 1 to 3°C above the long-term average for months.
To ensure that the ocean habitat remains as diverse and colourful as on the Luminous Marine Life coins, it is thus imperative that humans protect it, not least from themselves.
The Fifth Coin in the Series:
As dark and scary as the deep blue sea itself, a black coin like the Stony Coral has never been seen before.
Stony Coral, Stony Coral, the fifth 3-euro coin in the Luminous Marine Life series, transports one right into the most species-rich of marine habitats – the coral reef.
This is because stony corals use themselves as material to build fantastic living worlds where other sea creatures also thrive, including the clownfish, with its bright orange body and three black-edged white stripes.
When illuminated with ultraviolet light its secret is revealed as one come face to face with a scary sea monster. A highlight of Luminous Marine Life, the fourth coin in the 3-Euro series is more than worthy of a sea creature that could not be more extraordinary.
The peripheral inscriptions read - "STEINKORELLE. 2023".
On the Obverse of the 3 Euro Base Metal Coin, all 12 of the magical sea creatures in the "Luminous Marine Life Coin Series" are shown in silhouette.
Air bubbles up between them and a tail fin disappears beneath the waves to the right.
The peripheral inscriptions are - "REPUBLIK OSTERREICH. 3 EURO".
The specifications of the Coin are:
Country: Oesterreich Republik ("Republic of Austria"); Date/Year of Coin issue: 08.11.2023; Coin Denomination: 3 Euro; Coin Series Theme: "Luminous Marine Life"; Coin Theme: "Stony Coral"; Metal Composition: (Copper Alloy) Coloured Metal; Coin Quality: Uncirculated (U); Diameter/Size: 34.00 mm; Total Weight: 16.00 grams; Coin Designer: Kathrin Kuntner, Rebecca Wilding; Mintage: 65,000 pieces; Edge: Plain; Accessories: UV Torch for special colour effect; Packaging: Comes without packaging.
Co-developed with marine researchers, this Collector album not only stores all 12 coins in the Luminous Marine Life series but is also crammed with fascinating information about the 12 sea creatures that feature on them.
The album explains in detail how they live in and illuminate their aquatic environment and how vital that environment is for our planet as a whole, the threats it faces from humans and shows what can be done about it. It does so in a style that is understandable for youngsters yet entertaining for adults, making it a source of fun for coin collectors of all ages. You will learn, for example, about the ingenious deep-sea angler fish, which uses its very own illuminated fishing rod to lure its unsuspecting prey when hunting.
The album concludes with a quiz where you can have fun testing your newly acquired knowledge of marine biology.
It is only available in German language.
In addition to a dedicated Collector album, Luminous Marine Life also comes with its own special tool for enhancing the visual experience of the 12 coins in the series:
Through UV light, the torch maximises the experience by making the sea creatures on the coins really shine and glow. By shining the torchlight on the coins, the sea creature can be seen to change colour.
One can also use the torch to discover whether 2 of the 12 marine animals on the coins are nothing but dark or are harbouring a bright secret. And the fun does not stop with the coins themselves – illustrations and information are also hidden here and there throughout the album. By examining the pages with the torch, with a bit of luck one may discover them.
UV light is an abbreviation for ultraviolet light, which is also as known ‘black light (UV-A)’. Important instructions on how to use the lamp safely can be found on the back of the torch packaging.
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