The Oldest Living Thing

Australian scientists sequenced the DNA of samples of the giant seagrass, Posidonia oceanic, from 40 underwater meadows in an area spanning more than 2,000 miles, from Spain to Cyprus.

They found the seagrass was between 12,000 and 200,000 years old and was most likely to be at least 100,000 years old. This is far older than the current known oldest species, a Tasmanian plant that is believed to be 43,000 years old.

Prof Carlos Duarte, from the University of Western Australia, said the seagrass has been able to reach such old age because it can reproduce asexually and generate clones of itself. Organisms that can only reproduce sexually are inevitably lost at each generation, he added.

"They are continually producing new branches," he told The Daily Telegraph. "They spread very slowly and cover a very large area giving them more area to mine resources. They can then store nutrients within their very large branches during bad conditions for growth."

The separate patches of seagrass in the Mediterranean span almost 10 miles and weigh more than 6,000 tons.

The amazing thing to me here is that this..

1) The "Bronze Age" began in about 3300 bc - only a blip ago in the lifetime of this grass

2) The oldest "art" produced by humans dates to 40,000 years ago

3)  The oldest human fossils date to about 160,000 years ago, and it is thought that "modern" man probably evolved about 200,000 years ago... in other words, this plant might be as old as mankind.