April 27, 2007—Now you can have a "dinosaur" living in your backyard.
The Wollemi pine, an "extinct" tree that was discovered alive in Australia in 1994, is now being sold to the public in an unusual conservation effort. The tree was previously known only from 120-million-year-old fossils. Today fewer than a hundred exist in the wild.
Australian officials hope to bolster the tree's numbers by encouraging gardeners around the world to each take one home and plant it. Unlike other nonnative species, the Wollemi doesn't grow or reproduce fast enough to be an invasive threat, experts say.
In the U.S., the tree is sold exclusively by the National Geographic Society. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)
Catch a glimpse of some of the first wild Wollemi cuttings being literally snatched from midair, and hear what famed naturalist Sir David Attenborough thinks about the rare pine—and Australia's plan to save it.