It’s unusual for a group of trees to become famous, but the quaking stand of aspen known as Pando has been featured on Good Morning America and a U.S. postage stamp.
What looks like a forest is a single, 13-million-ton organism — perhaps the world’s largest living creature. It might also be the oldest living thing on the planet, having survived for over 10,000 years. But now scientists are warning that it could die this century as a result of human meddling with the ecosystem.
Calling it a poster child for ecological destruction might be a bit arbitrary — there are lots of possible contenders for that dubious honor — but Pando’s age and size, and its rapid decline, do say something important about humanity’s impact on the environment.