Scientists have confirmed a single coral colony in the Solomon Islands that stretches 34 meters wide and 32 meters long, making it the largest living coral structure ever recorded. The specimen, a Pavona clavus colony with a circumference of 183 meters, dwarfs every previously documented coral and has forced researchers to rethink assumptions about how large these organisms can grow. Estimated to be roughly 300 years old, the colony has survived centuries of ocean change and now stands as a biological anomaly at a time when reefs worldwide are deteriorating under heat stress and bleaching events.
A Colony That Eclipses All Prior Records
Until this discovery, the title of largest known coral colony belonged to a massive Porites specimen at Ta’u Island in American Samoa, often called Big Momma. That colony, measured in November 2019, has a diameter of 22.4 meters, a height of 8 meters, and a circumference of 69 meters. Those dimensions were already extraordinary for a single living organism. Yet the Solomon Islands Pavona clavus colony exceeds Big Momma on nearly every metric. Its 183-meter circumference is more than 2.5 times that of the American Samoa coral, and its footprint of roughly 34 by 32 meters places it in a size class previously thought impossible for a single genetic individual.
The comparison matters because coral colonies grow slowly, adding just millimeters to centimeters per year depending on species and conditions. For a Pavona clavus to reach these proportions, it would need not only centuries of uninterrupted growth but also a remarkably stable local environment. The Solomon Islands colony stands more than 5 meters tall, which is shorter than Big Momma’s 8-meter height but spread across a far wider base. That shape difference hints at distinct growth strategies between the two species, with Pavona clavus apparently favoring lateral expansion over vertical stacking.
What 300 Years of Survival Reveals
The age estimate of approximately 300 years, reported by the WHOI expedition following follow-up dives in August 2025, places the colony’s origin somewhere in the early 1700s. That means this single organism has persisted through the Little Ice Age’s tail end, the Industrial Revolution, two World Wars, and the accelerating ocean warming of the past half-century. While the age figure currently lacks published radiometric or dendrochronological backing in a peer-reviewed journal, the field observations and the colony’s sheer size lend the estimate plausibility and make it a prime candidate for more detailed geochemical dating.
Most coverage of large corals treats their age as a curiosity, but the survival timeline carries a harder scientific question: what local conditions allowed continuous growth when neighboring reefs suffered repeated bleaching? One possibility is that the Solomon Islands lagoon where the colony sits benefits from deep-water upwelling or tidal flushing that keeps temperatures within a narrow range. Another is that the colony’s symbiotic algae are unusually tolerant of heat and acidity, conferring resilience that nearby corals lack. If researchers can identify those protective mechanisms, the findings could inform reef management strategies elsewhere, from how marine protected areas are zoned to where restoration projects should prioritize outplanting stress-tolerant genotypes.
Citizen Science and the Taxonomy Problem
The Solomon Islands find is not the only oversized coral drawing attention. In February 2026, volunteer divers near Cairns on the Great Barrier Reef reported a coral giant described as “like a rolling meadow.” The discovery was notable not just for its size but for who found it: citizen scientists participating in a reef census, not professional marine biologists. Bridge, a researcher involved in the assessment, stated that genetic testing was required to confirm whether the Cairns coral truly was one colony rather than multiple organisms that had fused together over time, underscoring how easily visual surveys can misjudge what counts as a single organism.
That distinction is central to how records like the Solomon Islands colony are validated. A coral structure can appear to be a single organism while actually consisting of several genetically distinct individuals that grew into contact. Only genetic sampling can settle the question. The Solomon Islands Pavona clavus was identified in the field as a single colony, but the broader pattern of discoveries raises a practical concern: current coral taxonomy may be too coarse to capture the genetic diversity within what scientists have been treating as unified species. If genetic testing of mega-corals forces an overhaul of classification systems, size records could shift again as colonies are reclassified, split into cryptic species, or reassigned to different genera.
Why Giant Corals Matter Beyond Records
Large coral colonies are not simply biological trophies. They function as structural anchors for reef ecosystems, providing shelter, breeding habitat, and food sources for hundreds of fish and invertebrate species. A colony the size of the Solomon Islands specimen likely supports a disproportionately large share of local biodiversity compared to smaller corals of the same species, because its complex surface offers more microhabitats, shaded crevices, and feeding niches. When a colony of this scale dies, whether from bleaching, disease, or physical damage, the ecological loss cascades through the food web in ways that dozens of smaller colonies cannot easily replace, potentially reducing fisheries productivity and shoreline protection.
The discovery also carries weight because it happened in a region where scientific survey coverage has historically been thin. The Solomon Islands archipelago contains thousands of reefs that have never been systematically mapped. If a 300-year-old, football-field-sized colony went unrecorded until now, the implication is that other large structures may exist in similarly remote Pacific and Indian Ocean locations. Recent efforts to compile global reef baselines, such as a centralized reef database, highlight how patchy existing observations are and how much remains to be discovered even in well-known marine regions.
Protecting a Living Archive of Ocean History
Because corals lay down annual growth bands, a mega-colony like the Solomon Islands Pavona clavus is effectively a living archive of ocean history. Each layer of skeleton can record past sea-surface temperatures, salinity, and even pollution levels, turning the organism into a natural data logger that spans pre-industrial times to the present. Extracting and analyzing cores from such a structure could reveal how local conditions fluctuated over three centuries and why this particular colony endured events that devastated nearby reefs. Any sampling, however, must balance scientific value against the risk of damaging a unique organism that continues to provide ecological services and cultural value to local communities.
Safeguarding that balance will require coordination among researchers, local authorities, and Indigenous custodians who depend on the surrounding lagoon for food and livelihoods. Management plans may need to designate the site as a high-protection zone, limiting anchor drops, tourist traffic, and extractive activities that could physically harm the coral. At the same time, the colony’s fame can be leveraged to attract funding and expertise, whether through conservation grants or partnerships with organizations that specialize in marine stewardship. Opportunities for training and employment linked to reef monitoring, such as roles advertised on environment-focused job boards, can help ensure that benefits from the discovery flow back to the people who share their waters with this extraordinary organism.
In practical terms, the Solomon Islands mega-coral underscores how much of the ocean’s complexity remains invisible until someone happens to look closely. It validates the painstaking work of long-term reef monitoring programs, including those that aggregate survey data into publicly accessible platforms for scientists and policymakers. It also shows that citizen divers, regional scientists, and international expeditions all have complementary roles to play in revealing and protecting the planet’s largest living structures. As climate change accelerates, the question is no longer just how big a coral can grow, but whether conditions will allow another Pavona clavus to reach such dimensions in the centuries to come.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
