The world’s oldest tree, a 9,500-year-old Norwegian Spruce named “Old Tjikko,” after Professor Leif Kullman’s Siberian husky, continues to grow in Sweden. Discovered in 2004 by Kullman, professor of Physical Geography at Umeå University, the age of the tree was determined using carbon-14 dating.

“During the ice age sea level was 120 meters lower than today and much of what is now the North Sea in the waters between England and Norway was at that time forest,” Professor Kullman told Aftonbladet. Winds and low temperatures made Old Tjikko “like a bonsai tree…Big trees cannot get as old as this.”

More info: National Geographic (h/t: mymodernmet, aftonbladet)

Image credits: Karl Brodowsky

Image credits: Leif Kullman

Image credits: Carkrull

Image credits: Patrik Qvist

Image credits: IBL/Rex Features

Image credits: Petter Rybäck