IT'S a sperm bank with a difference.
For the past two years, Taronga Western Plains Zoo has been storing the sperm and eggs of coral from the Great Barrier Reef.
It now holds the biggest collection of frozen coral gametes - mature reproductive cells - in the world.
It's hoped the bank will help preserve the fragile World Heritage area.
Coral spawning on the Queensland reef occurs in spring after a full moon.
It is the only reproductive event that can be seen from space, with huge areas of the ocean turned red from the slick of gametes released by the coral.
Scientists from the Taronga Conservation Society, with the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Smithsonian Institute in the US, collect the eggs and sperm of coral off the Townsville coast and freeze them for storage at the zoo in Dubbo.
Visiting the zoo on Monday, NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker congratulated it on its role in helping to conserve the reef.
"Taronga Western Plains Zoo is making a significant contribution to the future survival of the economic ecosystem," she said.
"The sperm and eggs collected from coral species may help restore and potentially re-seed the reef if required in the future."
Dr Rebecca Spindler from the Taronga Conservation Society, who attended the latest spawning event in November, said maintaining a diversity of coral shapes was critical to restoring the reef.
"We have added another branching coral species - the beautiful Acropora loripes and now some brain coral as well," Dr Spindler said.
"One of the more significant aspects of this year's collection was the addition of frozen eight-cell embryonic cells that are pluripotent, meaning that each cell has the potential to grow into new coral."
Originally published as Zoo banks on frozen sperm to save reef