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

Pando, an enormous quaking aspen that spans more than 40 hectares in Utah, is not only one of the largest known organisms on Earth, it's also one of the oldest.

- STEPHANIE PAPPAS

New research, which is not yet peer-reviewed, has found that the aspen, which reproduces clonally through shoots called ramets, is between 16,000 and 80,000 years old. The oldest non-clonal organism on Earth is Methusalah, a bristlecone pine in eastern California that is 4,856 years old. The age estimate for Pando is based on the mutation rate over time in the aspen's genome.