Scientists claimed last Thursday to have found the largest coral in the world near the Solomon Islandsin the Pacific, a discovery “brimming with life and color”.
The coral is so immense that researchers sailing through the crystal-clear waters of the Solomon Archipelago initially believed they had found a sunken ship.
“Just when we thought there was nothing left to discover in the planet earthwe find a massive coral with almost a billion polyps, brimming with life and color,” said marine ecologist Enric Sala, originally from Spain.
The structure, which has been growing for about 300 yearsis made up of a “complex network” of tiny coral polyps.
It is different from a coral reef, which is made up of several different colonies of coral, explained Sala, an explorer from National Geographic.
At 34 meters wide and 32 meters long, the megacoral It is three times larger than record holder previous, a chorale called “Big Momma” in American Samoa.
The new coral was found on the southeastern tip of the Solomon Islands, an area known as the Three Sisters.
It was detected by a team of National Geographic who was carrying out a scientific expedition in the area.
Rising ocean temperatures and acidity have drained life from corals in many tropical Pacific waters, including the famous Great Barrier Reef. Australia.
But this new finding offers a small glimmer of hope, according to the research team.
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