The mega coral – which is a collection of many connected, tiny creatures that together form an organism rather than a reef – could be more than 300 years old.
It’s bigger than a blue whale, the team says.
It was found by a videographer working on a National Geographic ship that visits remote parts of the Pacific to see how it has been affected by climate change.
“I went diving in a place where the map said there was a wreck and then I saw something,” said Manu San Felix.
He called his diving buddy, who is also Inigo’s son, and they dived down to inspect it.
Seeing the coral, which is found in the Solomon Islands, was like seeing an “underwater cathedral,” he said.
“It’s very emotional. I felt this tremendous respect for something that stayed in one place and survived for hundreds of years,” he said.
“I thought, ‘Wow, this was here when Napoleon was alive,'” he added.
Mission scientists measured the corals using a type of underwater tape measure. It is 34 meters wide, 32 meters long and 5.5 meters high.
Globally, corals are under severe pressure as oceans warm with climate change.
Corals are made up of hundreds of thousands of living organisms called polyps, each with its own body and mouth, which grow together as a colony. Some corals develop a hard, outer skeleton and when many of them fuse together they form a coral reef.
Some of these reefs can stretch vast distances, forming huge structures where fish and other species live.
According to the World Economic Forum, coral reefs also support the livelihoods of a billion people, including by supporting tourism or fisheries.
