Are the Giant Redwoods in North America the oldest living thing on the planet?
Just curious…
Wow, what AWESOME answers! Thank you for sharing your knowledge 🙂
Wow, what AWESOME answers! Thank you for sharing your knowledge 🙂
4 Responses
JR
12 Aug 2010
lourdes r
12 Aug 2010
i know they are hundred years already but dont know if they are the oldest
vert.grimble
12 Aug 2010
Looks like the Bristle Cone Pine is the oldest at 5000 yo.
Earth Man
12 Aug 2010
No, the oldest known living thing, period, is the Kings Holly in Tasmania. It’s a type of plant with no flowers and no seeds. The Kings Holly reproduces by root suckering, and produces one big plant that just keeps getting bigger (right now a diameter of between 1 – 2 km).
Estimated age? 43,000 years.
The oldest tree is a Bristlecone Pine in the Mojave Desert, very "young" at "only" around 11,000 years old. The location of the individual "oldest" tree is somewhere in the White Mountains of California, but otherwise its location is secret. Why? Because you know damn well that if people knew where it was, they’d be trying to burn it, or cut it down, or some stupid thing like that.
So no, the Giant Redwoods are *not* the oldest living things on the planet, and not even the oldest type of tree.
This is SKIPPING a few species of bacteria and spores which are in a state of "suspended animation" from millions of years in the past.
There are trees that are even older than the California Giant Redwoods and they are Bristlecone Pine trees. The Bristlecone pine can be found atop the mountains of Western United States and grows at an elevation of more than 10,000 feet. The tree survived the harshest living conditions on earth: below zero temperature, brawny winds, small amount of rainfall and thin air.
He named his discovery “Methuselah. This tree is estimated to be 5,000 years old. Imagine it was already an old tree when the Egyptians were building the pyramids
http://scienceray.com/biology/botany/the-oldest-living-organism/
Bristlecone pines grow in isolated groves at and just below the tree line. Because of cold temperatures, dry soils, high winds, and short growing seasons, the trees grow very slowly.