The parrot fish

Do you know how sand is produced? There are quite a number of ways. This article is about a way of producing sand that you may not have heard of. Let`s meet the parrot-fish, which produces delicate sand out of corals.

The parrot-fish lives in the tropical waters. After biting a bit of the coral, it extracts nutrients from it, and gets rid of the residues that become thus sand. In order to feed it uses its extremely strong, toe shaped jaw, and its back teeth. Some members of the species may live up to 20 years, without wearing off their teeth.

At some places the parrot-fish chewing on the dead corals may produce more sand than any other kind of natural process. According to some researchers an ordinary parrot-fish may create approx. 100 kilograms of sand during a year.