from Hacker News

First Known Photographs of Living Specimens

by Morizero on 3/20/25, 8:19 PM with 43 comments

• by rex_lupi on 3/24/25, 6:31 AM

  It's sad that most of the commenters here did not care to read the "About" section of the project:

  >This project is designed to showcase the first known photographs of living specimens of any species. Note that by 'first known' I'm referring to the first known photographs of a species anywhere, not just the first photographs to be submitted to iNaturalist.

  >Two types of observation will be included: 1) First photographic records of undescribed species... 2) First photographic records of already described (but obviously relatively uncommon or cryptic) species...

  >If the male and female of a species are sexually dimorphic, then both are valid to be added to the project. So too if a species has distinct life stages (eg caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly), they are all valid to be separately added to the project (assuming the other rules apply).

  >If you see an observation currently in the project that you know is not the first photograph of that species, and you can show the earlier photograph, please do not hesitate to message me and I'll remove it.

  It clearly states the photograph has to be the first photograph someone ever taken of the species which they have published(journal/news/book etc.) or publicly shared. Also, historical pictures are welcome, as long as you took the picture. I have seen scanned images uploaded to the project dating back to the 1960s.

• by shabadoo75 on 3/24/25, 2:55 AM

  I know the guy that created that project, he's also published a paper on how important and valuable it's been for species monitoring and conservation https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10841-021-00350-7

• by madpen on 3/24/25, 1:48 AM

  Within the context of iNaturalist. Anyhow, cheers to the iNaturalist team, the work they do and their Seek app. It’s one of the only apps I recommend friends to give to their children to explore, appreciate, and learn about the natural world around them. I just hope they stay relevant in the ChatGPT world. TBH I often use a combination of the two when trying to ID something out in the wild, and ChatGPT many times does a better job.

• by 4ugSWklu on 3/24/25, 10:29 AM

  I hope that someone gets a photo of Crump’s Mouse one day.

• by Tewboo on 3/24/25, 2:30 AM

  Absolutely fascinating to see the earliest images of living organisms. Capturing life in such a way was a groundbreaking moment in science.

• by Nition on 3/23/25, 11:32 PM

  This seems like such a cool idea for a website, but then it's let down by the fact that it's actually First Known Photographs of Living Specimens Posted To INaturalist.com. I thought it'd be a bunch of photos from the 1800s but it's a bunch of photos from the 2020s.

  For example here is the actual first known photo of a domestic cat: https://i.imgur.com/OKtFMos.jpeg

• by nxpnsv on 3/24/25, 6:35 PM

  That's so cool, I live close to a bug only observed once!

• by a3w on 3/24/25, 1:23 PM

  Is homo sapiens in there?

• by bobsmooth on 3/24/25, 4:33 AM

  No photos of humans interestingly.