Diario del proyecto Brandeis University Biodiversity

On this fateful day, six years ago, a legend was born.

Today we celebrate Gerald, a true hero of iNaturalist and Brandeis alike. From humble beginnings as an everyday muskrat(?) on our very campus, Gerald has tranformed into arguably the most famous observation on this entire website, with over 400 community IDs and 1000 comments. Not to mention over 500 unique and hilarious observation fields.

The story of Gerald dramatically illustrates the problems that can arise from offering IDs to observations that you are not completely confident in, but it has also revealed a more light-hearted and fun side of iNaturalist, and for that, we owe Gerald our thanks.

I've seen ruminations across iNat suggesting ways for the platform to celebrate Gerald day. My favorite so far is that the iNat logo be replaced with a logo resembling Gerald on April 17th. Perhaps someday this dream will come true, and Gerald will earn recognition he deserves.