Hall of Fame/iNaturalist Historic observations and milestones

General
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If we were to make a project that’s essentially a Hall of Fame of the most historic and significant individual observations on iNaturalist, which ones should be included for posterity’s sake?
I can think of a few ideas but any suggestions would be appreciated (also if anybody can find out which observations these are)

  • The very first observation ever uploaded to iNaturalist
  • The 1,000,000th observation uploaded to iNaturalist
  • The 1,000,000,000th observation uploaded to iNaturalist (future)
  • The very first observation of the first City Nature Challenge
  • The 100th (or 1000th, either way works) iNat Observation of the Day
  • Gerald, obviously. What better to capture the spirit of the community?
  • On that note, this one probably deserves a spot as well
  • The first non-Gerald observation to pass 100 Favorites
  • Oldest observation by date observed (although I suppose this can change if somebody adds something older at a future time)
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here’s the 1 millionth: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1000000

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and this appears to currently be the oldest observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/47247203

(1768 herbarium sample)

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I feel like the xth post is a fairly arbitrary thing to immortalise, but sure, why not. I certainly don’t have anything against it.

But personally, what I’d be interested in seeing is observations that capture unique, rare, or otherwise unusual sightings. A behavioural interaction between species that don’t usually come into contact, for example, a previously unknown colour morph, or first observation of a species in a new range. Something like the Mola obs (https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/22612-holy-mola-the-oral-history-of-an-inat-identification) for me is far more interesting than the nth observation.

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Here is also very interesting project, the first photographs of living species.
And I’d like to mention this (Mustela felipei) and this (Okanagana arctostaphylae) observations.

Also, very sad but notable part is the last observations of the species. Like this (Corvus hawaiiensis), or this (Gymnogyps californianus). The birds which are no more.

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What if…
Instead of trying to find the first, 1000the, 10,000th observations and/or obs associated with specific behaviour, etc consider setting up a project that includes a number of journal posts. Perhaps the topic of the first post could be how to find observations associated with a particular iNat sequence number --> how can one find the first observation in iNat? How can you find the 1000th? Can this script be be modified to include a projectID or a place name? (this might be useful to other iNatters).

Would this project be set up as an old project type where iNatters must join and then manually select observations to add?

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Reward numbers in the decimal multiples seem silly when it might end up being a junk observation which gets suspended. So what about noteworthy observations from citizens scientists which shrink/confirm/extend range such as species that are considered extinct like this one from @reiner
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/extinct-ladybird-back-from-the-dead-20141014-115u4j.html

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Yes, interesting stuff is more interesting. :) I liked reading the link @kildor linked.

PS. Here is a journal post relating to the what @oneanttofew referred to (but journals are poorly read): https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/journal/reiner/22766-micraspis-flavovittata-lady-beetle-discoveries

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There’s some fascinating stuff linked in this thread! I’m not so interested in arbitrary milestones, but would appreciate a better way of finding these particularly notable observations outside the single “observation of the week” on the iNat blog.

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All fair points! Really appreciate the discussion

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