what is the worlds oldest living thing?

Question

i have hears contridictory storys and really wonder what is positivly known to be the oldest living thing?

Answer 1

The oldest living things on earth are Bristlecone pine trees, some of which can be found in the White Mountains of California. Many of them are over four thousand years old. Many of the trees living today were seedlings when the pyramids were being constructed, and mature trees in the time of Christ. These trees are ancient!

The oldest Bristlecones live in exposed sites at high altitudes, with lots of space between each tree. Strangely, these trees thrive only in the harshest of environments. The White Mountains, which rise to over 14,000 feet, are east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and so they get almost no rain. They're one of the driest places on earth during the summer. The trees live in hilly areas at the 10,000 foot level, where it is cold and windy.

Young Bristlecone pine trees are quite normal looking ... they assume their unusual shapes only with great age, when their limbs are mostly dead, carved into strangely beautiful shapes by thousands of years of exposure to the elements. The trees need just a few needles and a bit of living bark to survive.

How do these trees manage to live so long, in such a harsh environment, with strong winds, dry air, little rainfall, and very alkaline, sandy soil?

- The dry winds actually discourage insects, and help prevent fungus and rot.

- The tree's hard wood also provides protection from pests and disease.

- The Bristlecone pine uses almost all its energy for survival, rather than for growing. Its trunk may grow less than 1/100th of an inch per year, and trees reach a maximum height of about only 18 metres.

Older Bristlecones may consist mostly of dead wood, with only strips of living bark. Bristlecones are also isolated, as few other species can survive the harsh conditions. Forest fires seldom happen, as the trees grow far apart, and their needles last 20 - 30 years, so there is little ground cover to spread flames.

Bristlecones can remain standing for hundreds of years after death. They fall because the supporting roots finally decay, or are undermined by erosion. Yet even the oldest trees have the ability to produce seeds that will grow.

The oldest living Bristlecone pine is named 'Methuselah', and is 4,767 years old. Methuselah is not marked or identified, due to the threat of vandalism ... the U.S. Forest Service refuses to give its location or identity. But the trees weren't always as well protected. One even older tree was lost not long after it was discovered. In 1964, a researcher was taking core samples from some Bristlecones in Nevada, to determine their ages. When he discovered one that was well over 4,000 years old , the U.S. Forest Service gave him permission to cut the tree down!
Named 'Prometheus', the tree turned out to 4,950 years old, the oldest known living thing on the planet. It was likely the oldest tree in the world even when Shakespeare was writing plays!



Are Bristlecones really the oldest living organisms? A plant that may be even older is being studied by scientists in the Mojave Desert. It is thought that some creosote bushes there may actually be as old as 7,000 years!



Biology | Elementary Science & Math | Science & Math | Worsley School

Answer 2

The oldest Bristlecones live in exposed sites at high altitudes, with lots of space between each tree. Strangely, these trees thrive only in the harshest of environments. The White Mountains, which rise to over 14,000 feet, are east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and so they get almost no rain. They're one of the driest places on earth during the summer. The trees live in hilly areas at the 10,000 foot level, where it is cold and windy.

Answer 3

October, 1999; 250-million-year-old bacteria were found in ancient sea salt beneath Carlsbad, New Mexico. The microscopic organisms were revived in a laboratory after being in 'suspended animation', encased in a hard-shelled spore, for an estimated 250 million years. The species has not been identified, but is referred to as strain 2-9-3, or B. permians.
OR
1997; King's Holly (Lomatia tasmanica) - found in the rainforests of Tasmania. Scientists estimated the age of the plant using a nearby fossil of an identical plant. It was found to be over 43,000 years old! The plants appear to be sterile - incapable of producing flowers and viable seeds. Lomatia is triploid, that is, it has three sets of chromosomes instead of two. Because of this it is unable to sexually reproduce. The clonal thickets reproduce vegetatively by root suckering. Fossil leaves found in a late Pleistocene deposit may be genetically identical to present-day plants. The plant is a rare freak of nature whose origins and age are as yet unknown.

Answer 4

Below is a listing of what is currently in the literature as some of the oldest organisms still living today:

October, 1999; 250-million-year-old bacteria were found in ancient sea salt beneath Carlsbad, New Mexico. The microscopic organisms were revived in a laboratory after being in 'suspended animation', encased in a hard-shelled spore, for an estimated 250 million years. The species has not been identified, but is referred to as strain 2-9-3, or B. permians.

May, 1995; 40-million-year-old bacteria (Bacillus sphaericus) were found in the stomach of a bee encased in amber. These bacteria were also found in a state of suspended animation and were re-animated in a laboratory.

1997; King's Holly (Lomatia tasmanica) - found in the rainforests of Tasmania. Scientists estimated the age of the plant using a nearby fossil of an identical plant. It was found to be over 43,000 years old! The plants appear to be sterile - incapable of producing flowers and viable seeds. Lomatia is triploid, that is, it has three sets of chromosomes instead of two. Because of this it is unable to sexually reproduce. The clonal thickets reproduce vegetatively by root suckering. Fossil leaves found in a late Pleistocene deposit may be genetically identical to present-day plants. The plant is a rare freak of nature whose originsKing's Holly and age are as yet unknown.

August, 1999; Box Huckleberry (Gaylussacia brachycera) - researchers in Pennsylvania have discovered a living plant that is a remnant of the last Ice Age. Using the known rate of growth if this self-sterile plant, they estimated that this 1/4-acre colony is over 13,000 years old. Researchers are still trying to verify the growth rate to determine is that age is an accurate measure.

March, 2004; Eucalyptus recurva. Also known as "Mongarlowe Mallee" or "Ice Age Gum" it is the rarest Eucalypt in Australia or the world, and is known from only 5 individual specimens. Scientists in Australia are undertaking analyses to determine the exact age of one specimen that is estimated to be 13,000 years old. This aging method also relies on determining the plant's growth rate. Scientists are stilly verifying the growth and performing genetic analyses of neighboring specimens to determine if they are from the same organism.

April, 1980; Creosote bush (Larrea tridentata). Scientists discovered a giant, and very ancient clone of the creosote bush in the Mojave Desert in California they estimated to be between 11,000 and 12,000 years old.

Answer 5

"250-million-year-old bacteria were found in ancient sea salt beneath Carlsbad, New Mexico. The microscopic organisms were revived in a laboratory after being in 'suspended animation', encased in a hard-shelled spore, for an estimated 250 million years..."

"King's Holly (Lomatia tasmanica) - found in the rainforests of Tasmania. Scientists estimated the age of the plant using a nearby fossil of an identical plant. It was found to be over 43,000 years old! "

Answer 6

Senator Robert Byrd of W. Virginia

Answer 7

Bacteria is the worlds oldest living organism.

Answer 8

Trees could be the right answer or it could be a tortoise. I'm going with a tree.They have been known to live for hundreds of yrs.

Answer 9

Some corals have no lifespan, so they can technically live forever. In order to find out the age would require killing it though.

Answer 10

Prob ancient bacteria and cells. Otherwise, I'd say the Earth itself.