Comments on: The worlds oldest living things.

The worlds oldest living things.

arse_hat — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:44:13 -0800

Methuselah is 4,767 years of age. The Bristlecone Pines began life during the Third Dynasty in Egypt.

By: the wind

the wind — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:52:06 -0800

Best FPP ever.

By: emptyage

emptyage — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:56:39 -0800

Another Bristlecone named Prometheus was about 4,900, before being cut down in 1964 by a well-meaning scientist who intended to count its rings.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:56:55 -0800

It's interesting watching these trees - and others possibly even older - turn up in the discussion of the "global flood" from 5000 years ago. Here's a reference list of maximum tree ages that I also found to be good reading.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:01:42 -0800

Here's a long essay about the cutting down of Prometheus.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:03:34 -0800

Wow! I didnt know they were *that* old! Simple but sublime post. thanks arse_hat.

By: felix betachat

felix betachat — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:07:42 -0800

By the way, dendrochronology is seriously cool science. Basically, any archaeologist who can pull out wood, or impressions of wood with a reasonable amount of ring structure evident can correlate her find with a database of other tree rings to establish relative chronology for the site she's working on. This is so because larger climate patterns have a fairly standard impact on tree ring development across an entire region, so the patterns are transposable. It's an objective and external timeline that can be imposed on cultural evidence...nature's own stopwatch. Great post!

By: Pseudoephedrine

Pseudoephedrine — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:08:35 -0800

AARP Member # 0000000001

By: SPrintF

SPrintF — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:13:09 -0800

Although not single organisms, most coral reefs are between 5,000 and 10,000 years old. Jules Verne mentioned this in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as evidence of an "old Earth," at least older than Bishop Usher's 4004 BC date.

By: wilful

wilful — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:27:17 -0800

5,000 years? pffft! a flash in the pan! Try 2 billion!

By: FormlessOne

FormlessOne — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:39:28 -0800

Kind of adds scope to the term, "old growth forest."

By: reflection

reflection — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:45:55 -0800

For those as ignorant as myself, Wikipedia explains the name Methuselah for us: Methuselah or Metushélach was the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. He reportedly reached the age of 969 years. According to the Book of Genesis 5:27: And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. (ASV)

By: LarryC

LarryC — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:26:25 -0800

Great link--thanks arse_hat. And thanks too jessamyn for the essay on the cutting down of Prometheus, the oldest tree in the world. I worked a season at Great Basin National Park in the 1980s, and the old timers still talked about it. I was surprised to learn that even the parts of the story I thought were embellishments--how it was strongly suspected that the tree was the oldest but they cut it anyway, that the first sawyer refused to do the deed when he realized which tree was to be cut, and that a young man dropped dead trying to haul out a section of the trunk--are all true. Apparently the tree was cut because it was the oldest, the Forest Service (Department of Agriculture) wanted to thwart the attempt to turn the area into a National Park (which meant turning it over to the Department of the Interior) and believed that Prometheus would be another talking point in favor of park status. So the world's oldest living thing was sacrificed in a bureaucratic turf war. Up close these trees are astonishing, more dead than alive but with a sculpture-lie quality to them. The wood is so hard and dense and the climate so dry that they do not rot, the dead branches are scoured and polished away by the sand-laden winds.

By: hortense

hortense — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 19:42:58 -0800

Great post!Another place to see these magnificent plants close up, is at a ski area in S.W.Utah(brian head) ski right up and check it out

By: Relay

Relay — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:13:23 -0800

Ah c'mon reflection, Gershwin explained it MUCH better: methuzla lived 900 years methuzla lived 900 years who called it livin', no god had given no man lives 900 years It ain't necessarily so It ain't necessarily so The things that you're lible To read in the Bible, It ain't necessarily so.

By: LarryC

LarryC — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:29:54 -0800

Here are some wonderful photos of the Great Basin bristlecones in all their ragged glory.

By: arse_hat

arse_hat — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 20:48:52 -0800

Great links folks. These trees remind me of a similar but different phenomenon in Canada's far north. Along the line between the forested south and the tundra you can find forests of 2 and 3-foot tall trees. The thing that is so wondrous is that those 3-foot trees are 70 or 80 years old.

By: melissa may

melissa may — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:25:01 -0800

Fantastic, arse_hat. Thanks very much.

By: lobakgo

lobakgo — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 21:49:18 -0800

Very nifty, arse_hat. And thanks for the other links too, everyone.

By: yossarian1

yossarian1 — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:22:10 -0800

wow.... I love you metafilter... I was just talking to a co-worker about this the other day. I had never heard of a methusela tree then and was fascinated. Now I find this great FPP! Very cool!

By: X4ster

X4ster — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:04:01 -0800

Counting the annual growth rings on a sample of Bristlecone is like counting the pages in a volume of the Britainica by looking only at the edges.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:07:18 -0800

The bristlecone pines have survived for unknown centuries. The current threat is from all the people who come to visit them. "Methuselah", the oldest tree, is not marked due to the threat of vandalism. And the Huon Pine in Tasmania [h]as people from all over the world fascinated of course- and it has been fenced off so no-one can get anywhere near it, thank goodness. and a wooden boardwalk at Hamelin Pool allows people to view the stromatolites without damaging them. So sad but each measure is perfectly understandable in each case. No matter how lightly we tread, the oldest living things must be protected from the stress of our regard. Great post and great links in the comments. Well done, people.

By: mach

mach — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:20:42 -0800

My favorite trees have always been the Giant Redwoods. Sure, they may stick around for only 2000-3000 years, but since one of the main forms of reproduction is for new trees to sprout right out of fallen trees, some of the trees living today may actually be genetically identical to trees living 10s of thousands of years ago.

By: TedW

TedW — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 06:00:42 -0800

This post and thread are great; just the sort of thing I began reading Metafilter for. Thanks, everyone!

By: moonbird

moonbird — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 06:40:50 -0800

mefi gold. i knew about this but it's stunning nonetheless. what wonderful perspective at the end of the year. /crowns arse_hat

By: gwint

gwint — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 08:35:57 -0800

This is totally a double post. I distinctly remember seeing it here around 420 years ago and then *again* about 212 years ago. Please search before you post!

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 10:17:22 -0800

Nova from a few years ago. they still show it now and then. very cool. the Prometheus story is crazy.

By: freethought

freethought — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 19:55:05 -0800

I could probably dig around and find this information (I've actually tried before a little), but does anyone know if it's possible to schedule a visit to the tree? I know it's location is kept secret, but perhaps you could be walked there blindfolded and naked. I mean, would you rather have your picture taken with the world's oldest know living organism or, say, whatever funny famous person you can think of?