#pando

[victusinveritas]

Meet Pando, not a forest but a single tree. Every trunk of the Quaking Aspen is genetically identical & connected by a single 80,000 year old root system, making it one of the largest and oldest living entities on Earth!

[snototter]

Pando, a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) in Utah. Though this looks like a forest of many trees, each tree is a genetically identical 'clone' of the mother tree, all belonging to the same 14,000 year old root system. Pando is one of the largest and longest living organisms in the world.

by Dan Brekke

[creature-of-the-week]

Pando from Fishlake National Forest

[tortilla-bandit]

pando

[masterandapprentice]

IG: arrowmclaren

OMG!!!!! I'm dying! 🥹 This just gave me a thousand years of life! I knew it! The Pato/Lando is back! ❤️

Ok, I'll need to write something about this. There are too many coincidences, don't you think? 😏 lol i'm happy in my own little Pando fandom.

[nazrigar]

Pando - The Largest Single Organism by Mass and 14,000 years old, and some perspective on just how old that is.

A random thought came to my head last night...

This is Pando.

All of this? Is a single male aspen tree. This entire thing is a single tree with multiple stems sharing a single root system.

It is the largest tree by mass, and the heaviest single organism, weighing in at 6000 metric tons. For perspective, that's 20 blue whales in mass.

But what also intrigues me is that... well. It's an old tree.

Established in 12,000 BCE, meaning it would be 14000 years old by 2023.

By the the last Smilodons died out in 10,000 BCE, it would have already been 2000 years old.

And Pando is still a youngster compared to the high estimate age of this clonal colony of sea grass estimated to be 100,000 years old.

For perspective, when the last Neanderthal died in 40,000 BCE?

This sea grass would have already been 60,000 years old.

If human civilization (as in, the kind of organized polity that can be identified with things as "states" and "urbanization" among a plethora of other things) was established during 5000 BCE, and thus 7000 years old:

Pando would have already been 5000 years old.

The Sea grass colony would have already been 93,000 years old.

And considering that the oldest vertebrate, that is the Greenland Shark can live for 500 years?

All of human civilization encompasses the lifespans of just 14 Greenland Sharks.

I dunno... it just really shows that we pretty are a tiny blip in the grand scheme of Earth's geological history.

A very humbling thought if you ask me.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[cookinguptales]

I usually spend the first day of fall watching Over the Garden Wall, but I had to delay that tradition this year because of our road trip.

Still, spending the first day of fall in the middle of one of the largest living organisms on earth was a great way to start the season.

(And I still wore my new OTGW sweater.)