What Are the Oldest Living Things on Earth?

In the Methusaleh Grove, high on the windswept White Mountains near Bishop, California, grow the oldest living things on earth, over 4,000 years old.

These are the bristlecone pines, also known as "living driftwood" because of their gnarled and bent appearance. The bristlecone pine is a bushy evergreen that got its name from the long, thin, curving prickles on its pine cones.

The oldest of these living trees is named "Methusaleh," after the Biblical Methusaleh, who was supposed to have lived 969 years. The Methusaleh tree has been alive since 2,900 B.C., making it nearly 4,900 years old.

The Methusaleh tree grows so slowly that only one inch is added to the diameter of its trunk every hundred years!