‘Trembling Giant’ Clone May Be the Oldest Organism on Earth

An aspen forest in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest is one of the largest and oldest single organisms on the planet. It may be 80,000 years old. It’s called “The Trembling Giant,” or Pando, which is Latin for “I Spread,“ and it consists of at least 40,000 trees, spread over 100 acres. The apens all share a single root system, and each tree is a clone of the other. Forestry experts say Pando has gotten smaller in the past half-century, in part due to a changing habitat caused by climate change.