Do corals have muscles?

[hesaias]

I was wondering, do corals have muscles? Pulsing xenia, is there muscle tissue that causing the pulsing, or somthing else?
Also, can they think(I know they members of the animal kingdom, so I figure some sorta nervous system is there, right?)

[rshimek]

Hi,

Originally posted by hesaias
I was wondering, do corals have muscles? Pulsing xenia, is there muscle tissue that causing the pulsing, or somthing else?

No, they don't have true muscles. They have contractile epithelial cells (called myoepithelial cells). True muscles have embryologically different origin and are not found in any Cnidarian. However, some cnidatians - particularly large anemones and some jellyfish - have modified myoepthelial cells so packed with contractile fibrils that they are functionally indistinguishable from true muscle cells.

Also, can they think(I know they members of the animal kingdom, so I figure some sorta nervous system is there, right?)

They have nervous tissue, but nothing remotely resembling an associative area or brain or even good ganglia. The nervous system is in the form of a mesh network. Basically all of the animal's responses appear to be reflexes. So... no, they don't think. Nervous tissue exists to transmit impulses from point A to point B. It is hard to define "thinking," but I would suggest that most folks working on the topic would consider that a brain is a necessity for thinking.