Corals are massive, living underwater ecosystems housing thousands or even millions of species of marine life. Now oceanic researchers have just discovered the largest single coral organism ever, so big you can even see it from space.
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00:00Corals are massive living underwater ecosystems, housing thousands or even millions of species
00:09of marine life.
00:10And now oceanic researchers have just discovered the largest single coral organism ever.
00:15So big, you can even see it from space.
00:17It's located just off the coast of the Solomon Islands.
00:21Experts say that the coral stretch is more than 100 feet long, and it's also old, dating
00:24back at least 300 years.
00:27That means it's three times the size of the previous record holder in American Samoa.
00:31Coral reefs are marine megastructures, which lay over extremely large areas, like the Great
00:35Barrier Reef, which covers a 134,000 square mile portion of the ocean floor.
00:40Reefs are an interconnected group of many coral structures, with that same one comprised
00:45of nearly 3,000 individuals.
00:46However, this new record holder is one single coral, which experts say is around the size
00:51of a massive cathedral.
00:53And finding this huge healthy coral is a good sign, especially considering nearly half
00:57of all reefs around the world are under threat due to climate change.
01:00With the director of coral reefs at the Wildlife Conservation Society telling CNN recently,
01:05this shows that there are still environmental conditions where corals can survive and thrive,
01:09even potentially through the accelerating impacts of climate change.