How can I find the very first observation on iNaturalist?

[jasonhernandez74]

I want to find out what is the very first observation ever posted to iNaturalist. First, I tried using the URL, typing in low numbers, like this:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/0
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/1

These came up as nonexistent. So next I figured, maybe it started with x number of digits, not just one. I tried:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/0000000
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/000000
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/00000
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/0000001
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/000001
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/00001
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/0001
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/001
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/01

All these also came up nonexistent.

So next I went to “Explore,” did not enter a location or taxon, and set the filter to ascending. The first observation that comes up is
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/924211

Now, is that actually the first? Its number is already in the nine hundred thousands. It is not the first; when I manually entered
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/900000
That also comes up as an existing observation.

How can I find the very first iNaturalist observation?

[diegoalmendras]

look at this https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2

[kemper]

Yup, was just about to post that. Apparently there’s speculation on whether or not there was an observation #0 or #1, but https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2 seems to be the earliest recorded observation.

[wynand_uys]

If I deselect “verifiable” in the filter box and use submission date in ascending order I get:

Argentina anserinoides (New Zealand Silverweed) submitted January 04, 2007 by Gay Munro. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/935303

[nyoni-pete]

Surely not the kiwis beating the world … again!

[earthknight]

And that link has a comment from Ken-Ichi on how to parse the search URL for observations in sequential order.

[corunastylis]

Actually it says it was observed on Jan 04 2007 and submitted on Jan 03 2007. Very clever to be able to submit an observation before actually observing it.