[HN Gopher] First Known Photographs of Living Specimens
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First Known Photographs of Living Specimens
Author : Morizero
Score : 118 points
Date : 2025-03-20 20:19 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inaturalist.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inaturalist.org)
| Nition wrote:
| 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
| jeremyjh wrote:
| No, its pretty clear that only first known photographs can be
| added. If a picture of the species exists in a book somewhere,
| its not eligible for the project.
| mutagen wrote:
| From the About Section of the page:
|
| 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 e.g. this
| Gasteracantha sp. 2) First photographic records of already
| described (but obviously relatively uncommon or cryptic)
| species e.g. this wasp fly.
|
| 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).
|
| Please only add observations depicting live organisms; this
| therefore excludes specimens such as pinned insects.
|
| 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.
| Steuard wrote:
| I think that the previous poster's point is that _historical_
| photographs are not in-scope to be added to this project: for
| example, this project will never include the first known
| photo of a living platypus (or a living cat, as noted),
| because such photos existed before this project began. The
| project collects photos posted to iNaturalist that meet the
| specified criteria.
|
| It's a cool collection of modern observations of rare or
| remote species! But the title could also describe an entirely
| different research project, focused on historical media
| rather than modern exploration. That could also be very cool.
| rendall wrote:
| > _...historical photographs are not in-scope to be added
| to this project... because such photos existed before this
| project began._
|
| That contradicts what the website itself says:
|
| > _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._
|
| > _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._
| Nition wrote:
| Both statements are in fact correct and non-
| contradictory. It's confusing, but I believe what they
| mean in the guidelines is that there are two criteria
|
| - The photos must be on iNaturalist
|
| - The photo must be the first photo of the species ever,
| not just the first photo on iNaturalist
|
| That is, if a species was ever photographed anywhere
| before, outside of iNaturalist, that species can't be
| part of the project, ever.
| mattigames wrote:
| The quality of that photo is so bad that it arguably hardly
| counts as anything, I cannot even understand it's head
| position. I bet most people wouldn't recognize it as a cat
| unless you tell them first that its supposed to be one.
| msephton wrote:
| So only "good" first photos should count?
| mattigames wrote:
| Non-smudged photos yeah, otherwise you could say any smudge
| of colors is any animal you claim.
| LoganDark wrote:
| It's Bigfoot!
| mattigames wrote:
| Now I'm wondering what was the first viral fake photo of
| big foot
| msephton wrote:
| I mean, the photo is clearly a cat drinking milk from a
| saucer.
|
| Details and alternative cat photos that are as old (which
| is "first" is unknown)
| https://workman.tumblr.com/post/120829319747/houghtonlib-
| hou...
| Nition wrote:
| The head is on the far left, drinking from the saucer.
| walrus01 wrote:
| This is a very uninformed comment if you understand even the
| most rudimentary of the problems involved in early
| photography and the history of the daguerrotype and
| photograph, specifically, that exposures needed to be
| multiple seconds long to capture an image.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| The real problem looks like glare, at least to my
| rudimentarily informed eye.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Lenses and optics in general were also extremely
| rudimentary at that time, it looks to me like a
| combination of the cat moving during an 8 second exposure
| and a hand-ground lens.
| mattigames wrote:
| Yes I know about exposure, this isn't about the technical
| qualms of any giving photograph but the utility it has for
| the general public by being smudged to this degree.
| madpen wrote:
| 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.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| > Within the context of iNaturalist.
|
| No, he/she meas everywhere:
|
| > 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.
| Nition wrote:
| No, it's confusing but as far as I can tell what they're
| saying there is that if a species was ever photographed
| anywhere before, outside of iNaturalist, that species can't
| be part of the project at all. It's a page for people on
| iNaturalist who have captured the first known photo of a
| species.
| devb wrote:
| > but as far as I can tell
|
| Did you actually look at the details? It's literally in
| rule #1:
|
| > 1 . Any observations you add must be the first
| photograph(s) of that species anywhere. If an observation
| is the first one for that species to be uploaded to iNat,
| but other photos of that species from an earlier point in
| time already exist anywhere elsewhere online/in print, then
| that observation should not be added to the project. This
| is the biggest source of observations that I have to remove
| from the project. So your observation must be both the
| first photograph of that species on iNat and also the first
| anywhere.
| Nition wrote:
| I did, but isn't that rule saying exactly the same thing
| as I said above, just in different words?
| specproc wrote:
| Big, big love for iNat. Up there with Wikipedia as an Internet
| treasure.
|
| Spring is coming on here and it's getting a lot of use in our
| house! Don't even have kids.
|
| I'd defend it over ChatGPT if you're prepared to wait. So many
| knowledgeable people using it. A classic example of the best
| way to get a correct answer being to post a wrong one!
| kelseydh wrote:
| What steps do you recommend for IDing a weird bug or slug you
| find in the wild? Do you just upload a photo to chatgpt? What's
| the equivalent with iNaturalist?
| Tewboo wrote:
| Absolutely fascinating to see the earliest images of living
| organisms. Capturing life in such a way was a groundbreaking
| moment in science.
| shabadoo75 wrote:
| 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
| bobsmooth wrote:
| No photos of humans interestingly.
| paulluuk wrote:
| They're not exactly "relatively uncommon or cryptic"
| a3w wrote:
| > This project is designed to showcase the first known
| photographs of living specimens of any species.
|
| Where does it say they need to be rare?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Humans have been photographed before and are therefore out
| of scope.
| gertlex wrote:
| They're more specifically out of scope because the first
| person to ever photograph+publish a picture of a human
| (which would fit the upload rules as I read it), is long
| since deceased ;)
|
| (I'm sure someone on here could point us to which photo
| this would be, though!)
| alnwlsn wrote:
| It seems to be this one taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulevard_du_Temple_(photog
| rap...
| paulluuk wrote:
| From the page linked:
|
| > First photographic records of already described (but
| obviously relatively uncommon or cryptic) species
| rex_lupi wrote:
| 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.
| almostnormal wrote:
| Calling it "oldest" instead of "first known" would have avoided
| most of the confusion.
| culi wrote:
| I'm not sure if the HN article title was changed but the
| iNaturalist title of the Project is "First Known Photographs
| of Living Specimens"
| 4ugSWklu wrote:
| I hope that someone gets a photo of Crump's Mouse one day.
| a3w wrote:
| Is homo sapiens in there?
| culi wrote:
| On iNaturalist, a Homo sapiens species would automatically be
| marked as "casual" meaning its not eligible to be a "research-
| grade" observation
|
| Anyhow species that were first photographed outside of
| iNaturalist would not be eligible for this project. It is
| possible however to upload an observation that happened many
| years ago (even before iNaturalist existed)
| rex_lupi wrote:
| >Anyhow species that were first photographed outside of
| iNaturalist would not be eligible...
|
| To clarify, it would be eligible if the photograph has not
| been published (i.e. made available publicly outside of iNat)
| and you own the license.
|
| If you had taken the first-known pics of an animal a few
| decades ago, and posted them on Facebook earlier, you can
| still add them to this project, as they fulfill all the
| technical requirements.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| That's so cool, I live close to a bug only observed once!
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(page generated 2025-03-24 23:01 UTC)