I believe they have records of lotus seeds lasting thousands of years and still sprouting. I haven't had any ancient seeds spring to life in my garden but I do remember years ago when I worked at a zoo that some lizard eggs hatched after being in the incubator for THREE years!! We had a couple of pairs of African Chameleons (I forget which species). One older pair laid a clutch of eggs which were placed in a special lizard egg incubator. We had a policy that if the embryo is still alive we don't throw them out even if they fail to hatch - mostly because the science of what makes an egg hatch wasn't there yet (this was the mid 80's). So the eggs sat in the incubator for years and then one of the other pairs laid a clutch of eggs which were placed next to the old eggs. Eggs are candled every couple of days to check on the development and notes were taken and conditions recorded. We noticed that the old eggs started to develop into baby lizards right in sinc with the newer eggs. All the babies hatched the same weekend!

Strange things can happen.

Wow,TJ, that really is strange!

What a cool story, TJ! I have 11 skink eggs i found in one of my pots and i can't wait to see them when they hatch. Our herpetologist neighbor is going to watch over them while we're gone on vaca and i sure hope they don't hatch then! Found a baby anole in the green/screenhouse the other day. Sweet little guy- not afraid of me at all. He wasn't more than a week old or so.

Jqpublic, i just read about some date palms that are now extinct being propagated, starting from seed they found in tombs that are over 3-4000 years old! I've kept tomato seed more than 10 years and had it start without many problems, just took a bit longer. They say the dreaded microstegium seed lives at least 7 years. urgh.

Amazing stories guys! I was just surprised b/c I didn't save the seeds in a cool dry spot...they were outside in NC weather for 10-15 years. It is a nice surprise though. No complaints here :)

My native plants friends are always telling of plants that "disappear", only to re-emerge five or so years later. Also, I know that tomato seeds found in Mexican and CA burial sites proved viable almost a thousand years later.(In a former life I was a Spanish teacher, so I kept track of these interesting bits of trivia.)