Here, Rachel Sussman discusses some amazingly old things. In fact, these are the oldest living things in the world. Throughout the video, Sussman shows photographs of the world's oldest continuously living organisms and relates amazing facts about these organisms. Of course, these are just the oldest known things (we obviously haven't measured and marked and dated everything on the Earth).
She takes us on a journey from 2,000-year-old brain coral off Tobago's coast to an "underground forest" in South Africa that has lived since before the dawn of agriculture. There are bristlecone pines that are older than 5,000 years and images of the pando forest, which is a mind-blowing 80,000 years old (yes, that's 80,000 years).
For over ten years, she has been traveling the world researching and working with biologists to find things on our planet that have lived for more than 2,000 years. Her work helps to remind us how fleeting we are compared to come of Earth's organisms. It is a helpful reminder in a world that seems rather human-centered. It also helps us understand the evolutionary history of our planet and the organisms being discussed.
WATCH: Oldest Living Things TedTalk
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