What is the oldest living thing on our planet?

Answer 1

the methusala tree...is that how you spell it?

Answer 2

There is a type of desert bush, that is said to be the oldest, 1000's of years old. But it is difficult to say because the new growth germinate in the same place.
Some lichens are difficult to measure, but judging growth rates and the size, can be 1000's of years old.
Trees, in particular the Brazil Nut or Giant Redwood or Gingko or.......etc.etc. would probably be the oldest at around 1000 years or slightly less.
Or you could say that germinating a 100,000 year old seed should be classed as the oldest.

Many scientist consider it an important question, to me it's like saying how long is a piece of string.

Answer 3

A tree called the General Sherman in California, is said to be about 7,000 years old. It was around at the time of the pyramids being built. It's a Sequoia.

Answer 4

A TREE of course - though to be sure which one you would have to cut it down and count the rings.
some redwoods in the usa are claimed to be of great age
there are olive trees in Jerusalem that are claimed to be 2000+
take your pick. Oh and I hear there is a forest in Scotland that is made up entirely of one original tree. that one must date back to the ice age. The texans aren't the oonly boasters in the world guess who they learnt it from.

Answer 5

Crocodile, they were around in the dinosour age, but I read in the 2007 Guiness Book of Records there is a lady 116 years old!

Answer 6

well, there are a turtle that die after 250+ years. So going on that, the oldest living thing will probably be a turtle. LOL

Answer 7

Probably a Galapagos tortoise

Answer 8

The Antarctic Ice Caps?

Answer 9

Joda from Star Wars.

Answer 10

The oldest trees are determined by growth rings, which can be seen if the tree is cut down or in cores taken from the edge to the centre of the tree. Accurate determination is only possible for trees which produce growth rings, generally those which occur in seasonal climates; trees in uniform non-seasonal tropical climates grow continuously and do not have distinct growth rings. It is also only possible for trees which are solid to the centre of the tree; many very old trees become hollow as the dead heartwood decays away. For some of these species, age estimates have been made on the basis of extrapolating current growth rates, but the results are usually little better than guesswork or wild speculation.

The verified oldest measured ages are (Gymnosperm Database):

Great Basin Bristlecone Pine Pinus longaeva: 4844 years
Alerce Fitzroya cupressoides: 3622 years


Giant Sequoia Sequoiadendron giganteum: 3266 years
Huon-pine Lagarostrobos franklinii: 2500 years
Rocky Mountains Bristlecone Pine Pinus aristata: 2435 years
Other species suspected of reaching exceptional age include European Yew Taxus baccata (probably over 3000 years) and Western Redcedar Thuja plicata.

The oldest verified age for an angiosperm tree is 2293 years for the Sri Maha Bodhi Sacred Fig (Ficus religiosa) planted in 288 BC at Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka; this is also the oldest human-planted tree with a known planting date.

The Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) is one of the bristlecone pines, a group of three species of pine found in the higher mountains of the southwest United States. Great Basin Bristlecone Pine occurs in Utah, Nevada and eastern California. In California, it is restricted to the White Mountains, the Inyo Mountains, and the Panamint Range, in Mono and Inyo counties. In Nevada, it is found in most of the higher ranges of the Basin and Range from the Spring Mountains near Las Vegas north to the Ruby Mountains, and in Utah, northeast to South Tent in the Wasatch Range.


Needles and cones, Snake Range, Nevada.It is a medium-size tree, reaching 5-15 m tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 2.5 m, exceptionally 3.6 m diameter. The bark is bright orange-yellow, thin and scaly at the base of the trunk. The leaves ('needles') are in fascicles of five, stout, 2.5-4 cm long, deep green to blue-green on the outer face, with stomata confined to a bright white band on the inner surfaces. The leaves show the longest persistence of any plant, with some remaining green for 45 years (Ewers & Schmid 1981).

The cones are ovoid-cylindrical, 5-10 cm long and 3-4 cm broad when closed, green or purple at first, ripening orange-buff when 16 months old, with numerous thin, fragile scales, each scale with a bristle-like spine 2-5 mm long. The cones open to 4-6 cm broad when mature, releasing the seeds immediately after opening. The seeds are 5 mm long, with a 12-22 mm wing; they are mostly dispersed by the wind, but some are also dispersed by Clark's Nutcrackers, which pluck the seeds out of the opening cones. The nutcrackers uses the seeds as a food resource, storing many for later use, and some of these stored seeds are not used and are able to grow into new plants. However, in many stands current reproduction is not adequate to replace old and dying trees.


Detail of cone from a Bristlecone Pine, Snake Range, Nevada.It differs from the Rocky Mountains Bristlecone Pine in that the needles always have two resin canals, and these are not interrupted and broken, so it lacks the characteristic small white resin flecks appearing on the needles in that species. From the Foxtail Pine, it differs in the cone bristles being over 2 mm long, and the cones having a more rounded (not conic) base.

The oldest known tree in the world is a specimen of this species located in the White Mountains, with an age of 4,700 years, measured by annual ring count on a small core taken with an increment borer. It bears the nickname "Methuselah". An older specimen, nicknamed "Prometheus", was cut down in 1964.

Among the White Mountain specimens, the oldest trees are found on north-facing slopes, with an average of 2,000 years, as compared to the 1,000 year average on the southern slopes (Lewington and Parker, 37). The climate and the durability of their wood can preserve them long after death, with dead trees as old as 7,000 years persisting next to live ones (Lewington and Parker, 37).

Answer 11

Bacteria that's around 250 million years old.