Although Pando or the Trembling Giant appears to be several different trees on the surface, it is technically one single living organism that shares a massive underground root system. Pando is a clonal colony of a single male quaking aspen tree that spans over 43 hectares acres. In addition to being one of the oldest living organisms, Pando is also the heaviest living organism in the world, weighing in at 6,, kilograms 6, short tons.
Pando was first discovered in by researcher Burton V. Barnes, who continued to study the tree through the s. Since roots cannot be dated as accurately as tree rings, some researchers claim that Pando might be closer to 1 million years old. Unfortunately, researchers believe that Pando may be currently dying but the United States Forest Service is currently looking for a way to save the tree.
Age: 25 — 35 million years Location: Extracted from bees encased in amber from the Dominican Republic Species: Unknown ancient strain. Microbiologist Raul Cano appears twice on this list due to his notable contributions in reviving ancient organisms. In , Cano and his team were the first scientists to extract and successfully revive ancient bacteria.
The bacteria spores were recovered from ancient bees that were encased in amber from the Dominican Republic. At time time, no one believed that Cano was able to bring 25 — 35 million year old bacteria back to life. To prove his claims, Cano and his team spent three years testing and retesting their process before publishing their findings.
The ancient bacteria found in the prehistoric bees are similar to the microbes that live in the gut of present-day bees. Age: 25 — 45 million years Location: Extracted from amber from Myanmar Species: Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The story of microbiologist Raul Cano and the ancient yeast he extracted from amber that came from Myanmar sounds a lot like science fiction.
That depends on your definition of a "single tree". In Fishlake National Park in Utah in the US lives a quaking aspen tree that most people would struggle to see as "a tree". It's a clonal tree called "Pando", from the Latin meaning "I spread", and for good reason. It is so large that it is easy to mistake for a forest. However, Pando, despite being the size of Vatican City, has all sprung from one seed, and, over the years, has grown a single vast rootstock supporting an estimated 50, tree trunks.
Accurately estimating how many years is problematic, says population geneticist Prof Karen Mock from Utah State University, who works on the aspen. Clonal trees grow in all directions and regenerate themselves as they go.
This means taking a core from a trunk will not give you the age of the whole tree. Scientists try to get around this problem by equating size to age. It's an inaccurate process and Pando's estimated age ranges from a few thousand to 80, years old. Prof Mock hopes that a new technique, looking at how many DNA mutations are accumulated over time, could give them another way of assessing the age of this remarkable tree.
Take the quiz. Quiz: What are the oldest living things on Earth? The gentle reptilian giant originated from the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, but made the move to the Atlantic as a gift to the then-governor of St.
Helena in Since then he's roamed about the governor's grand island estate, where he enjoys the company of three other giant tortoises and frequent human guests. Celebrated as the Thousand Year Rose, a towering rose bush in Germany is thought to have been established by King Louis the Pious in The bush grows alongside a Catholic cathedral dedicated to St. Mary in Hildesheim, a beautiful medieval village noted for its ancient churches.
Besides beauty and age, the plant exhibits remarkable fortitude. Allied bombing during World War II left the cathedral in ruins, but the rose, a Rosa canina, also known as the dog rose, somehow survived, flourished and now grows more than 30 feet high next to the apse of the restored church.
Visit anytime, but late May and early June are the best times to see the delicate pink blossoms. The fig tree under which Siddhartha Gautama experienced enlightenment in India is long gone, but a cutting from it, carried by a royal devotee to Sri Lanka around BCE, give or take a few decades, has grown into one of the most revered trees in the Buddhist world, and the oldest known tree with a planting recorded in history.
Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi, Ficus religiosa, has welcomed the religious, the curious and the nefarious in the centuries since. Wells marveled at it. Elephants damaged it. Tamil separatists besieged it. Today, pilgrims of all kinds pay homage, especially on full moon poya days, to the tree, which sits among elaborate gardens, canals, golden fences, religious stupas and younger Bodhi trees in the Mahamewna Gardens in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.
The clam was named Ming after the Chinese dynasty that was in power during its early life. Looking like the early stages of an extraterrestrial invasion, the llareta grows in verdant, ice-cream-scoop blobs high in the Andes mountains of South America. Some of these otherworldly plants are quite large, leading scientists to extrapolate the age of some individuals to the tune of 3, years old. If organisms that achieve their long lifespans by repeatedly cloning themselves are acceptable contenders, then the quaking aspen Populus tremuloides takes the crown.
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