# Oldest living thing still alive...? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2004, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642 "2004-09-29T07:49:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/1 "2004-09-29T07:49:08Z")
As part of the same quiz (another question I need help with [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5307929#post5307929)), I would like to find clarification for the following question: _“What is the oldest thing still alive on earth?”_ \* - I sense this is going to be controversial, and in terms of the actual quiz I fear the quizmaster may have to discard this on marking due to it being too vague. I’d like to find a definitive answer, so what say you? Is it… [ul] [li]Bristlecone pine trees in Canada / US? (Methuselah Tree)[/li][li]Some Coral Reef, somewhere? [/li][li]The flowering shrub called a “Creosote bush” in the Mojave Desert?[/li][li]The “King’s Holly” plant found in Tazmania?[/li][li]Something else altogether…[/li][/ul] Thanks for any light you can shine on this. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/2 "2004-09-29T08:15:25Z")
Bacteria; all of them. Bacteria reproduce (for the most part) by binary fission - one cell splits and turns into two cells - they only die if they are killed. ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/3 "2004-09-29T08:22:04Z")
Mmmmmm…interesting. Would you say, though, that it is the ‘same’ bacteria that is still living? Actually, these guys [do](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/978774.stm), so could be looking good. > [@](#): > > The bacterium, known as Bacillus strain 2-9-3… IYO, do you think that would satisfy the _spirit_ of the question? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/4 "2004-09-29T08:36:58Z")
Difficult to say’ once you get away from organisms where there is some idea of _persistence of identity_, it all gets a bit blurry; many plants can reproduce by division - some (for example garlic, have abandoned sexual reproduction in favour of it). If you take, say, a daffodil bulb and slice it in half vertically, both halves will survive and produce plants genetically identical to the one you started with - if we want to eliminate human intervention, just _plant_ the bulb and it will naturally divide eventually. Which plant is the ‘original’? - both? neither? Possibly, but certainly not _only one and not the other_. The same logical problem occurs even with organisms that do have persistent identity, because the components of which the organism is composed are often being replaced continually. Without qualification, the quizmaster’s choice of correct answer is arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/5 "2004-09-29T10:22:09Z")
I’d probably go with some kind of coral reef thing. Either that or Sister Mary Catherine - the Nun that taught me RE at primary school. ---
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/6 "2004-09-29T10:36:34Z")
I know I’ve heard - on here, I seem to think - that the largest _living_ thing on the earth is some form of massive fungus, spreading over miles in America somewhere. So based on what people are saying here about the asexual reproduction of microbes, maybe that’s it. Fungi propagate by budding, which is asexual, as far as I can recall. _Armillaria ostoyae_ in Oregon. God bless Google ---
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/7 "2004-09-29T10:39:27Z")
:smack: Post to add, if it’s that big, it must have been growing for a hell of a length of time, so that’s why I think it might be exceedingly old. ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/8 "2004-09-29T10:40:08Z")
Actually, looking at the original question again, I see it is phrased as such: \*\*Which \*\* is the oldest thing still alive on Earth? Does that change the question? From another less quizzy perspective, what IS the oldest living plant with _‘persistence of identity’_ throughout it’s existance? The King’s Holly in Tazmania is said to be over 40,000 years old, but that is speculation or guessimate, surely. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/9 "2004-09-29T10:51:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Which is the oldest thing still alive on Earth? I suppose they could be thinking species-wise in which case wouldn’t it be crocodiles or something? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/10 "2004-09-29T10:52:19Z")
The oldest plant with persistent identity is probably going to be [Methuselah](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/methuselah/) - a bristlecone pine tree in California’s White Mountains - believed to be nearly 5000 years old. ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/11 "2004-09-29T11:11:22Z")
Yet the [‘Creosote bushes’](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1853828.stm) are dated at 11,700 years which would trump Ol’ Methuselah, and the ‘King’s Holly’ is also said to be [43,000 years old](http://www.delm.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/BHAN-54A7XU?open), although it is a clone. (whatever that means in this context!) Any reason why these would not count? ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/12 "2004-09-29T11:13:05Z")
Ah, scrap the latter above, as (from [here:](http://www.delm.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/BHAN-54R7ZZ?open)) > [@](#): > > Individual plants probably live for only 300 years (based on growth ring counts). However the plant has been vegetatively reproducing itself for 43,600 years. ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/13 "2004-09-29T11:16:19Z")
Okay, scrap both the above contestants I mentioned: on closer reading of the previous cite I see: > [@](#): > > Although the original plant may live for only 100 years, some of the clones may date back 10,000 years or more It is also a clone. Looks like the bristlecone pine is back on top. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/14 "2004-09-29T11:18:49Z")
The creosote bushes and King’s Holly (along with any number of other organisms, including a really big patch of fungus in Oregon and a huge swathe of bushes somewhere in Siberia) are vegetatively-reproduced remnants of an organism that has been around for a long time - there may not be any traces of the original plant material remaining. Methuselah, OTOH, has the same trunk that it had 4.5 KYears ago. Like I said, unless the qualifiers are carefully defined, the choice of what represents the oldest organism is arbitrary. If you include the organisms that reproduce vegetatively, there’s no rational reason to exclude bacteria and algae, which have been around much longer. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/15 "2004-09-29T14:37:13Z")
I’ll go with the bristlecone pine Methusula. There was actually a bristlecone discovered on Wheeler Peak (the Currey Tree, or Prometheus) that was older than Methusula, but it was cut down. [http://www.terrain.org/essays/14/cohen.htm](http://www.terrain.org/essays/14/cohen.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/16 "2004-09-29T16:02:37Z")
A “clone” in the sense the term is used in botany and botanic ecology does not mean “Dolly the sheep is a separate individual created exclusively from a cell from her genetic mother” but rather “a vegetative growth that extends itself over a large area and is genetically identical in all its parts.” So it’s not a case of the elements of a given plant being the “clone,” in the Sunday supplement sense, of another plant, but rather that the plant is all of one piece biologically, even though spread over a large area; it has interconnected roots and such that make it a single individual entity reproducing vegetatively. By parallel, a “fairy ring” of mushrooms is a single “plant” (fungi are not plants, but allow me the popular usage) – you have individual sporing bodies emerging that look like separate entities, but they are part of a single underground vegetative body expanding in a circle from a given point, and growing sporing bodies – the actual fairy ring of mushrooms – at the edges of the circle. One such fungus in Michigan is enormous – something like 10,000 square miles in area – and extremely old, though probably not the record holder. It’s in cases like this that one has to try to essay a definitition of “individuality” as applied to plants and such. Clearly two pine trees are separate plants – but is the same true of a clump of bamboo growing from the same rootstock? The crabgrass that reproduces vegetatively underground, where interconnected roots may link a hundred “plants,” in terms of what grows aboveground? If you count them as one plant, does taking a shovel and digging a trench across the middle of the rootstock constitute making two plants out of one? Is a piece of kelp, no part of which is over 20 years old, but which has been growing at one end and dying at the other for hundreds of years, less than 20 years old or several hundred? The answer to the OP depends not so much on an actual factual statement as in the definitions you apply to not-so-obvious questions like these. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/17 "2004-09-29T22:28:39Z")
> [@](#): > > If you count them as one plant, does taking a shovel and digging a trench across the middle of the rootstock constitute making two plants out of one? To further that one, if the two “plants” subsequently grow back together and splice together, have the two plants then become one again? What if two genetically distinct plants do so, or even two different species? I once saw a “tree” which had two different trunks fused together, apparently from related but different species (the leaves were similar, but the bark on the two trunks was completely different). Was that one tree or two? ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/18 "2004-09-29T22:57:24Z")
The Great Vine at Hampton Court was planted in 1768. Not old compared with some of the living things cited in this thread, but it is definitely still the same, individual vine and its history is well-documented. It has always had its own greenhouse and still produces a good harvest of grapes each year, some of which are sold to the public. [http://www.backyardgardener.com/article/green/798.htm](http://www.backyardgardener.com/article/green/798.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/19 "2004-09-29T23:09:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > To further that one, if the two “plants” subsequently grow back together and splice together, have the two plants then become one again? What if two genetically distinct plants do so, or even two different species? I once saw a “tree” which had two different trunks fused together, apparently from related but different species (the leaves were similar, but the bark on the two trunks was completely different). Was that one tree or two? There are such things as chimaerae in the plant world - commonly called ‘graft hybrids’ - Laburnocytisus Adamii - formed by grafting a Cytisus(broom) onto laburnum (or vice versa) - the tissues of the two plants mingle throughout the whole tree and some branches produce yellow flowers, others produce pink and yet others produce mottled bronzy ones. Not that this has anything to do with longevity. Persistent identity is a fascinating issue. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-living-thing-still-alive/266642/20 "2004-09-29T23:17:42Z")
> [@mack](#): > > There was actually a bristlecone discovered on Wheeler Peak (the Currey Tree, or Prometheus) that was older than Methusula, but it was cut down. Man, I HATE it when that happens…