[aruanan]

"Although a single tree trunk can become at most about 600 years old, the spruces had survived by pushing out another trunk as soon as the old one died," Professor Kullman said.

The bristlecones are still the oldest individual organisms, though that creosote in Utah is, because of identical genetic markers, supposed to be the oldest individual organism at some 80,000 years.

Seems the Swedes took the weasel route. This is like coming up with a headline about finding crocodiles that are millions of years old and then saying that although a single crocodile can become at most about 100 years old, the crocodiles have survived by reproducing other crocodiles before the older ones died.

[Inyo-Mono]

The bristlecones are still the oldest individual organisms,...

Good point! I'm glad too, because I had to write a lot of that Bristlecone pine material for local brochures and web sites and I didn't want to have to rewrite all of it.

[blam]

Oldest Living Thing

October, 1999; 250-million-year-old bacteria were found in ancient sea salt beneath Carlsbad, New Mexico. The microscopic organisms were revived in a laboratory after being in 'suspended animation', encased in a hard-shelled spore, for an estimated 250 million years. The species has not been identified, but is referred to as strain 2-9-3, or B. permians.

These are specimens of the 250-million year old bacteria, B. permians. If it can be verified that these were re-animated from a long, long period of suspended animation then they hold the record for world's oldest living organism