great barrier reef world heritage area

photo by daniel stassen

GBR contains extensive areas of island communities. the reef is a broken maze of coral reefs and coral cays which includes 2800 individual reefs, of which 760 are fringing reefs. it also provides habitats for many diverse forms of marine life. there are approximately 1500 species of fish, 300 species of hard and reef-building corals. furthermore, there are more than 4000 mollusc species and over 400 species of sponges. in GBR we can also found other well-represented animal groups such as marine worms, anemones, crustaceans and echinoderms.