If you looked at our Map the Giants map until just a few days ago, you would have noticed one ocean missing our distinctive pin: the Atlantic. ๐
It is well known that scleractinian biodiversity in the Atlantic is lower than in the Indo-Pacific. Yet several species are known to potentially grow to impressive sizes, and whether they could meet our giant coral criteria was still to be proven.
This giant ๐๐ณ๐ฃ๐ช๐ค๐ฆ๐ญ๐ญ๐ข ๐ง๐ข๐ท๐ฆ๐ฐ๐ญ๐ข๐ต๐ข from Honduras is now part of our database, measuring around ๐ญ๐ฌ ๐บ ๐น๐ผ๐ป๐ด ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ฐ ๐บ ๐ต๐ถ๐ด๐ต. The colony has several overlapping portions and, based on the speciesโ growth rate, is estimated to be around ๐ฏ๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ ๐ผ๐น๐ฑ.
This report is particularly exciting because it confirms the presence of giant corals in the ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ป and gives us even more hope of finding others across the ๐๐๐น๐ฎ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ฐ. ๐ชธ
