The world's largest and oldest organism may have been growing for 80,000 years

This is Pando, "the Trembling Giant," an astonishing clonal colony of quaking aspen trees located in Utah's Fishlake National Forest. Spanning about 106 acres and consisting of over 47,000 genetically identical trees, Pando is actually a single living organism connected by an extensive, ancient root system. That means even as old stems die, new ones emerge, making Pando one of the oldest known organisms on Earth. But how old is it? New research from Utah State University suggests that it's anywhere from 16,000 to 80,000 years old. (That's three to sixteen times older than Methusaleh, the bristlecone pine in California's White Mountains that's thought to be the oldest non-clonal living organism.)

From LiveScience:

There is a broad range in the estimate, study lead author Rozenn Pineau, a researcher at Utah State University, told Live Science, because the mutations in the aspen are rare, and it's not entirely clear how quickly these genetic quirks pile up in new shoots and stems. But sampling of a lakebed near Pando also revealed the continuous presence of aspen pollen over 60,000 years, suggesting that the clone may have been around since the time humans began migrating out of Africa.

Each stem in Pando appears as an individual tree, yet they all share identical DNA, giving the grove an astonishing unity in appearance.

"How did this organism survive all of the environmental changes that it has been facing throughout the years?" Pineau said. "These are really interesting questions to think about."

Previously:
• Mystery tree grown from 1,000-year-old seed likely source of ancient medicinal balm
• This is one of the world's tallest trees; and this is the arborist who climbed it
• The oldest living tree tells all