I find it amazing to look at artefacts that survive from the ancient world - just to think about all the centuries of history that they have existed through. But a lovely piece in the today's Observer goes one better, pointing out that plenty of organisms that were alive thousands of years ago are still going strong today. They range from the 2000-year-old welwitschia plant, a conifer that produces just two leaves in its entire lifetime, to actinobacteria that have been frozen in Siberian permafrost for a mind-boggling half a million years.
Photographer Rachel Sussman aims to photograph as many of these organisms as possible. To qualify, they have to be at least 2000 years old, meaning they would all have been around in the time of the ancient Greeks. She tells the Observer that the project has a two-fold message - "a humble, existential aspect in which the entirety of human history feels dwarfed by the longevity of life around us" - and an environmental caution. "We have these organisms that have quietly persevered for an unfathomable amount of time but which are now in jeopardy," she says. "The Siberian actinobacteria are half a million years old and live in the permafrost. If the permafrost isn't permanent, the oldest living things on the planet will die."
The picture above is of a brain coral, which can live for up to thousands of years. It isn't one of Sussman's, but you can see some of her photos on her blog.