In February of last year, we posted about posidonia oceanica, known as Neptune grass, a variety of sea grass that covers the ocean floor from Spain to Cyprus. Some plants hare believed to be around 200,000 years old, making them the oldest living life form on the planet.  The plant reproduces by cloning so the DNA of any given plant be very, very old.  But what is the oldest non-colonial animal?  Scientists gathered a mollusk from the Icelandic shelf in 2006 as part of a study of climate change. Mollusks are generally thought to live for around 100 years. One of the mollusks collected was much older.

An arctica islandica bivalve mollusk, also known as an ocean quahogs, was found that was initially thought to be over 400 years old.  It was nicknamed Ming the Mollusk, as it apparently lived during the Chinese dynasty, though with in a different neighborhood. More recent analysis, however, suggests that the mollusk was in fact more than 100 years older — dating back 507 years.

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An underwater volcano has creating a new island around 620 miles south of Toyko, Japan.  According to the Associated Press it is roughly 660 feet in diameter, off the coast of Nishinoshima, a small, uninhabited island in the Ogasawara chain, which is also known as the Bonin Islands. Whether the island will survive erosion by the sea remains to be seen. Thanks to Phil Leon for contributing to the post.

Volcanic eruption in Japan gives birth to new island