Thousand Year Old Baobab Tree

Spotted in the Ifaty reserve, north of Tulear in southwestern Madagascar (Lat: -23.15, Long: 43.62), is this incredible Baobab tree that is purportedly a thousand years old. Adansonia za, common name Baobab, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Adansonia belonging to the Bombacaceae family.

It’s a large thick-stemmed deciduous tree, about 10–40 meters (33–130 ft) high and about 6 meters (20 ft) in diameter. The trunk and branches have a brownish-rose colored hue. The tree is wide at the base and grows to a narrow point towards the top of the tree. 

Adansonia is a genus of eight species of tree, six native to Madagascar, one native to mainland Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and one to Australia. Some baobabs are reputed to be many thousands of years old, which can be difficult to verify, as the wood does not produce annual growth rings, though radiocarbon dating may be able to provide age data. 

The photograph was taken by Dan Doucette for Project Noah. Project Noah is a platform designed to help people reconnect with the natural world. Launched out of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in early 2010, the project began as an experiment to mobilize citizen scientists and build a digital butterfly net for the 21st century. Backed by National Geographic, their ultimate goal is to build the go-to platform for documenting all the world’s organisms, and through doing this they hope to develop an effective way to measure Mother Nature’s pulse.