A vast organism in Utah, USA, which may have existed since the last Ice Age, is the heaviest earth and extends over 106 acres.
Pando is a quaking aspen tree found in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest in Sevier County. Looking at pictures of it, you’d be forgiven for wondering which one among the hundreds of trunks is that of the famous and ancient organism.
In fact all of them are, being 47,000 genetically identical stems connected to an enormous subterranean root system, as per LiveScience.
The tree spread across the landscape through cloning, with each stem an exact copy of the one next to it.
It does this through asexual reproduction rather than combining its DNA with other trees as with other species.
The organism’s ingenious root system produces new clones between stems, which has helped keep the plant alive for millennia, according to the outlet.
Though it now covers an area of more than 400,000 square metres, Pando began life as a single seed.
A recent DNA analysis of hundreds of tree samples published in the preprint database bioRxiv in October suggested it’s between 16,000 and 80,000 years old, though the research hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed.
The tree colony’s name means “I spread” in Latin. It is estimated to weigh a whopping 6,500 tons (5,900 metric tons).
That makes it as heavy as about 40 blue whales, the largest animals known to have existed on our planet, according to Smithsonian Ocean.
According to the US Forest Service, Pando is thought to be the largest, most dense organism ever discovered.
But despite standing firm for thousands of years, the tree is beginning to show stark signs of decline.
A 2018 study looked at aerial images taken of Pando over seven decades, showing gaps in the canopy as well as ageing stems without new cloned stems taking their place.
The study suggested this was due to the colony being eaten by cattle and mule deer that graze in the National Forest, removing sapling tops at a rate Pando can’t compensate for.
The deer population had once been lower due to the presence of predators like wolves, bears and cougars, most of the populations of which have since been eliminated by humans.
The US is also home to the world’s largest single-stem tree by volume, General Sherman, in California’s Sequoia National Park, which is 52,508 cubic feet.
According to Visit California, the epic mega tree measures 103 feet around at its base and stands 275 feet tall.
