What ’s the enigma to a long life ? You could do worse than to start off by asking the creation ’s largest organism : Pando , the 106 - acre ( 43 - hectare ) stand of quaking aspen clones . Estimated to have been spreading its roots for around 14,000 year , it may also be the prospicient - living being known to science .
Extreme longevity has been give away in all manner of beast , ranging from lifespan that are an impressive diversion from the average – such as the oldest human who populate for122 year – to life histories that sweep thousands of old age . Thelongest - living animalson Earth include the immortal jellyfish that can live for around 2,000 years ( if not incessantly ) , but when we look at seniority among sessile being , thing get really crazy .
Pando – up to 14,000 years, but also 130
Pando – pictured above – is a confusing individual organism because on the surface it appear like an entire forest . Its name is Latin for gap and it ’s actually made up of47,000 clonesthat together , weigh around 6,000 tonnes . By mass , it is the large individual being on Earth .
Stands of clonal aspen like this one survive elsewhere on Earth , but none are so sprawling . It took Pando thousands of years to get so bragging , with some estimates dating it back 14,000 old age , despite the fact its someone stem only live to a paltry 130 years .
Monorhaphis chuni– 11,000 years
A deep - ocean glass sponge knocked scientist ’ socks offin 2012when they were able to use the composition of its silica structure to establish its lifespan . NamedMonorhaphis chuni , it grows spicules made up of homocentric layers of silica , and while they ca n’t be dated like the growth tintinnabulation in tree diagram , their layers can be fit to preceding clime to work out when they formed .
There are looking glass sponges other thanM. chuni – which is the sometime – and they all attend passably out - of - this - worldly concern .
AnM. chunispecimen from the East China Sea was estimated to be around 11,000 years old ( + /- 3,000 year ) . Not only are these 3 - metre ( 10 - foot ) sponges living through aeon , but they ’re also recording the journey , and have the potential to teach us a lot about the retiring conditions of the cryptic .
The rose survived being bombed in WWII.Image credit: Paulis viaWikimedia Commons(CC BY 3.0)
The Rose of Hildesheim – 1,200 years
A radical system and a deep - sea sponge both seem like the sorting of peculiar organism that might forget to die , but an unexpected debut for long - last organism is a type of rose . Also acknowledge as the dog rose or – for obvious ground – the thousand - year pink wine , it lives on Germany ’s Hildesheim Cathedral and was planted in the former 800s , and no , we did n’t forget the " 1 " .
Now say to be around 1,200 years old , the blush wine was almost bombed to death during WWII , but from the rubble of the duomo it get back from a live root , writesAtlas Obscura . It still blooms annually , producing pink peak around May .
Ancient root system , leech , and florescence roses are pretty coolheaded , but did you have a go at it there ’s a jellyfish that’sbiologically immortal ?
