Timeline · 2025
Explore works, community discussions and changing forms by date. The 1988 entry is a film predecessor; original date precision is preserved.
2025-12
2 records2025-11
12 recordsPOV-Ray variant by BeetleB
“Write a POV-Ray file.” A related prompt. https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2025/Oct/pelican-on-a-bike-raytracer-edition/
Gemini 3 family
The prompt gained species-level detail, alongside the article “What happens if AI labs train for pelicans riding bicycles?”
Gemini 3 + enhanced prompt
An early systematic use of the enhanced prompt specifying a California brown pelican in breeding plumage.
Gemini 3 / GPT-5.1 / Sonnet 4.5
Three providers compared with an enhanced prompt.
Opus 4.5 / Sonnet 4.5 / Haiku 4.5
Three tiers from the same model family.
Gemini 3 Pro / Heavy / Opus 4.5
Single model vs multi-agent Heavy vs Opus.
Claude Opus 4.5
An enhanced animation prompt with a surreal route, wings and shadows.
2025-10
4 recordsGemini 3.0 Pro Arena lithimflow
From the period when the model used an anonymous Arena name.
Gemini 3 checkpoints
The author considered the original prompt nearly saturated and began “SVG maxing.”
minimax-m2-preview
A MiniMax test around the first anniversary of the prompt.
2025-09
3 recordsClaude + ffmpeg geq
A five-second animation made with FFmpeg geq, with spinning wheels and flapping wings.
2025-08
4 recordsDeepSeek-V3.1 instruct vs reasoner
The instruct model produced a pastoral style; the reasoner produced a cartoon.
2025-07
4 recordsGPT-5 vs Gemini 2.5 Pro
An English-language animation comparison from summer 2025; 110,000 views.
Qwen3-Coder-Flash MLX
A local 6-bit model produced both a pelican and Space Invaders.
2025-06
5 records34 pelicans; Gemini 2.5 Pro preview won
GPT-4.1 mini judged 560 matches at a reported cost of about $0.18.
AnimationMistral Small 3.2 15GB
A decent local result from a small quantized model.
2025-05
4 recordsGemini 2.5 Pro
One of the strongest results at the time, although the model described the bird as a duck.
Google I/O keynote
A pelican riding a bicycle appeared in the Google I/O keynote.
2025-04
5 records2025-03
6 recordsmulti + Grok 3 mashup
SVGs from several models were passed to Grok 3 to synthesize a hybrid creature.
Gemini 2.5 + p5.js
Google Creative Lab used p5 rather than pure SVG; 140,000 views.
2025-02
4 records2025-01
4 recordsDeepSeek R1
Called “the pelican that crashed the stock market.” The bicycle is recognizable and the bird roughly resembles a pelican, but it is not really riding yet.
deepseek-r1:32b
An early Three.js example with orbit controls, produced on the third attempt.
unspecified agent
The author wrote, “It's not amazing.” An early example of failure.
