The largest and oldest living organism on earth

[mdoganay]

Scientists have recently discovered what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.

A- Extending
B- Extends
C- Extended
D- it extended
E- is extending

Can somebody explain?

[karthikgmat]

Past tense extended is not correct here, because living organism is still alive and continuing to grow.. So extending ..

its A

[killer1387]

A+1

[sam2304]

The key lies in understanding the structure

Scientists have recently discovered what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and rootlike tentacles
spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago AND
extending for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.

We need extending here as it is still living and still growing.
E - wrong with the usage of 'is' giving us progressive form whereas 'extending' act as present participle parallel to 'spawed', past participle and leads to change in meaning with superficial parallelism and is wrong without another 'that' preceding 'is'.

IMO A.

[kul512]

The key lies in understanding the structure

Scientists have recently discovered what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and rootlike tentacles
spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago AND
extending for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.

We need extending here as it is still living and still growing.
E - wrong with the usage of 'is' giving us progressive form whereas 'extending' act as present participle parallel to 'spawed', past participle and leads to change in meaning with superficial parallelism and is wrong without another 'that' preceding 'is'.

IMO A.

is my understanding correct-

A gian fungus is modified by a) intervowen filigree b) root like tentacles
Rootlike tentacles modified by a) spawned b) extending.

If not please explain. Can a comma after "the rootlike tetacles" be used to make meaning more clear.

[GMAT Kolaveri]

Scientists have recently discovered what could be the largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than 30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.

A- Extending
B- Extends
C- Extended
D- it extended
E- is extending

Can somebody explain?

after the comma, there are two entities and both describe the organism. Both should be in same tense. that is an interwoven and extending.