A bristlecone pine is the oldest living organism on earth.

Bristlecone pine trees are very cool trees that grow in the western part of the USA.  Some of these trees are among the oldest living things on earth.

I always find facts about the greatest, smallest, oldest, or largest living things super cool.  My kids have borrowed the Guiness Book of World Records from the library, which is full of neat facts.  Well, today I want to talk about some of the oldest living things on the planet.  The oldest living organism is not an animal, but is a type of tree.  Some bristlecone pine trees that live in the western USA are thousands of years old.

How Old Are Different Living Things?

Humans are a relatively long lived organism.   Humans may live anywhere from 70 to 100 years.  That is pretty old, but tortoises can live almost twice as long, up to 190 years old.

But, compared to plants and trees, those are all just youngsters.  Many trees can live for much, much, much longer than that.

Bristlecone Pine trees are some of the oldest living organisms on the planet!  Look at how gnarled they are!

Bristlecone Pine Trees Are The Oldest Living Organism On Earth!

In fact, the oldest tree on earth is located near the Rocky Mountains – actually just to the west of the Rocky Mountains in the Great Basin where it is very dry.

The oldest known trees and living organism on the planet is a Bristlecone Pine Tree.  There is one Bristlecone Pine Tree, called Methuselah, that is almost 5,000 years old!  It’s location is kept secret so that nothing can happen to it.

I remember hearing stories about old redwoods in California that people marveled over how old they were after they cut them down and counted the tree rings.  Guess they don’t want that to happen to old Methuselah.

Here are a couple of facts to help give a sense of how old 5,000 years is.  The tree was already over 4,000 years old when Columbus discovered America.

It was nearly 3,000 years old when Cleopatra ruled in Egypt!