According to a Washington Post article (Taking chips off the oldest blocks), a bristlecone pine tree “nicknamed Methuselah, … has clung to its rocky patch of ground near the Nevada border for the past 4,768 years, making it the oldest known living tree on the planet.” Now, maybe I’m wrong, but doesn’t that make it the oldest known living anything on the planet?
Poor, departed Promethius was 4,950 when it met its untimely end in 1964. That would have made Promethius 220 years older than Methuselah, had it survived to the present.
Some famous actor (like Clint Eastwood or someone) had a really, really old tree registered in California. I mean old. And tall. I wish I could remember the details.
Anyhoo, it freaks me out to think of living things that are so friggin’ old. It’s very cool.
I was fuming when I read that link Finch…leave it to modern humans to wreck something that stood for almost 5000 years. 
Wow! I’m not sure if I would really count bacteria (although the sheer age is impressive), but I did not know about those creosote plants. Wow!!
There was a show on I believe the Discovery Channel about the numbnut that felled the old bristlecone, only to come to the stunning realization he’d just killed the world’s oldest living tree. Science marches on, sometimes with very heavy boots.
The show went on to say that Methuselah’s exact location would remain undisclosed.