MEET METHUSELAH, THE OLDEST LIVING TREE ON EARTH 

Did you know that the oldest living tree on Earth, named Methuselah, is older than the Egyptian pyramids?

The famed 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But hidden high in the United States' California’s White Mountains is an unassuming natural wonder which out-dates the Giza Pyramid by hundreds of years, the Bristlecone Pine tree (Pinus longaeva) known as Methuselah.

Methuselah holds the Guinness World Record as the oldest named individual tree on Earth. At over 4,850 years old, its age was determined through core samples. To put its age into proportion, by the time of the Trojan War around 1200 BC, Methuselah would have been over 1,600 years old!

The name, Methuselah, pays homage to the biblical figure Methuselah, the oldest person of all time, who according to the Judeo-Christian tradition lived for 969 years, to be precise.

Bristlecone Pines have survived unforgiving landscapes and temperatures, and there’s something ironic in the fact that the oldest living tree is actually located in the so-called New World. Its discovery in the 1950s attracted tourists to the area, causing damage over time. 

Another Bristlecone Pine, nicknamed Prometheus, was inadvertently cut down when a researcher tried to recover his tree corer from its trunk. Smithsonian Magazine revealed he only realized what he’d done after reviewing the sample and discovering it had been over 5,000 years old. This tragic event inspired the authorities to create the Great Basin National Park to protect the millennial Bristlecone Pines. As a result, the true location of Methuselah is now classified.

But, what’s the secret to its survival? Resilient to extreme conditions, its roots have adapted to nourish only certain branches, limiting the impact when they die. The Bristlecone Pine is also a slow-grower (one-hundredth of an inch a year) while its needles live for over 30 years, helping the tree conserve energy.

Over the years, Methuselah has faced some stiff competition. In 2022, Science reported that the Jonathan Barichivich concluded that a Patagonian cypress (Fitzroya cupressoides) in Chile, known as the Gran Abuelo (great grandfather) was actually over 500 years older than Methuselah. Alternatively, a clonal forest of Populus tremuloides in Utah, known as Pando, could be as old as 14,000 years. The enormous forest—spanning 80 football fields according to National Geographic—is a collection of genetically identical stems which sprang from one single seed.

Source:

Culled from 'The Oldest Living Tree on Earth is Older Than the Egyptian Pyramids' By Cecilia Bogaard

https://www.ancient-origins.net/weird-facts/oldest-tree-0018559