The warm blue waters of the Solomon Islands, an archipelago in the South Pacific, are home to one of the world's largest marine species.
It's about the size of two basketball courts, and it's neither a whale nor a giant squid.
A piece of coral.
On Wednesday, a team of researchers and filmmakers exploring the Solomon Islands revealed they had discovered what they claim is the world's largest individual coral colony. Corals are symbionts made up of millions of animals called polyps, and at 34 meters wide and 32 meters long, they are so large that they can be seen from space. A typical coral reef is made up of many different coral colonies, most of which are genetically distinct, but this is just one coral individual.
In new photos shared by the research team, the species of coral known as Pavona clavus looks like a brown, craggy mound covered in knobs. If you look closely, you can see yellow, green, and purple parts. Given its size and the coral's slow growth rate, this specimen is probably several centuries old.
“It's like a dream to see something so unique,” Manu San Felix, an underwater photographer and marine biologist who saw the coral for the first time in the Solomon Islands last month, told Vox. “This was here when Napoleon was alive.”
San Felix discovered the coral while filming near an island called Marauralo on an ongoing National Geographic expedition. The expedition was conducted in partnership with the Solomon Islands government and is part of National Geographic's Pristine Seas project, which aims to help countries establish more marine parks by documenting marine life. It is said that Dennis Marita, a member of Urawa's Poonapaina tribe, said Marauralo is largely uninhabited and its waters are largely unexplored. This tribe oversees the Marauralo maritime territory.
“This is a huge deal for our community,” Marita, who is also the director of culture at the Solomon Islands Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said at a press conference on Tuesday.
No other coral larger than this one is on public record, but larger colonies may exist in remote parts of the ocean that have yet to be discovered. The previous record holder for the world's largest coral was a 70-foot-wide colony in American Samoa.
“Many of the world's coral reefs are remote and understudied,” said Stacey Jupiter, executive director of marine conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, who was not involved in the expedition. told Box. Humans have only explored about 5 percent of Earth's oceanic areas, she said. “So it's not at all surprising that we continue to make new discoveries, even in large organisms,” Jupiter said.
The discovery comes at a time when coral reefs are disappearing around the world.
Climate change is warming the oceans and the warm water is killing corals. Corals get their color and much of their nutrition from symbiotic algae that live inside their polyps. When seawater warms too much, the algae disappear and corals turn white, or “bleach.” Bleached corals are basically starving to death.
Coral reefs around the world are facing the most extensive bleaching crisis on record. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, three-quarters of the world's coral reefs have experienced bleaching-inducing ocean heat since early 2023. Many corals died.
Meanwhile, new research suggests that more than 40 percent of the hard corals that make up coral reefs, like the recently discovered colonies in the Solomon Islands, are at risk of extinction.
Simply put, this is a problem. Coral reefs cushion the waves that hit coastlines during hurricanes, are home to much of the commercial fish that people eat, and are the driving force behind the tourism economy in many coastal regions. Hundreds of millions of people depend on coral reefs.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a National Geographic team found many dead corals in the shallow waters of the Solomon Islands, which is likely caused by excessive heat in the ocean, says marine ecologist and expedition team member. said Molly Timmers, chief scientist at. That was discouraging, she said.
In the face of that loss, the discovery was a “ray of hope,” Timmers told Vox. “Oh my god! This is amazing!”
Large coral colonies provide a home for marine life such as crabs, snails, and small fish. More importantly, they seed the ocean with baby corals when they spawn or reproduce, helping to restore damaged parts of the reef.
Additionally, this particular coral may be more resistant to stresses such as excessive ocean heat. The researchers estimate that it is between 300 and 500 years old, meaning it has survived multiple global bleaching events. Unlike other corals closer to the shore, this one, which was over 10 meters deep, looked healthy. Perhaps because they were in deeper, colder water, or because they have a built-in genetic resistance to heat. Therefore, the spawn it produces may also be resilient.
“Anything that's old is good at surviving,” said Maria Beggar, a marine ecologist at the University of Leeds. She was not involved in this discovery.
Discovering a huge coral colony isn't all that impressive in and of itself, Beggar says. To support marine life and withstand threats such as climate change, it is more important for coral reefs to have a variety of coral species of all shapes and sizes than a single large coral species.
“At the same time, if reports like this get people excited about coral reefs, that could be a good thing,” she said.
The discovery could also help conserve water in the Solomon Islands more effectively, Marita from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism told Box. He said his tribe had informally conserved Marauralo Island on its own for 10 years, but the island would benefit from an official marine reserve recognized by the Solomon Islands government. Marita has been campaigning to make that happen.
“This will definitely support the conservation efforts that we've been working on,” he told Vox about the discovery. “This giant coral will help bring much-needed visibility and recognition from governments and other stakeholders, which is a real benefit for us.”
