Paradise Out of Poop

Tropical islands have always inspired in us a sense of magical beauty. Atop on our list of summer getaways and featured on countless postcards that criss-cross the globe, what lingers is an inexplicable draw to those pearly white beaches. But what we probably don’t wonder often is how these exquisite beaches came to be – the story is as extraordinary as the places themselves.

- Chetana Purushotham

The white sand that comfortably sinks with your step when you take a stroll on the islands that dot the Pacific Ocean is actually fresh produce brought over from a busy underwater world almost always hidden from our view. For over thousands of years, and still counting, bits of limestone are being washed up from coral reefs just offshore. Coral reefs harbour some of the most numerous and yet rarely acknowledged architects of our coastlines - from small shellfish and calcareous plants to crustaceans and fish. We have one group of rather curious-looking fish, and their daily habits, to thank for our beautiful lagoons and beaches. Parrotfishes - named so for their strong and large parrot-like beak for teeth – are prolific in tropical seas. With voracious appetites and a particular taste for plants, parrotfishes scrape and excavate algae off the top of coral boulders, while almost systematically biting off chunks of coral in the process. Careful only to digest the algae, they pass the coral pieces right through their gut and poop them out instantly as sand. In a single day, a large school of parrotfish working its way through a reef looks no different from a limestone manufacturing unit - driller, earth-mover and crusher combin