As Albert Einstein once said, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind, and a technology tool without a cartoon mascot is incomplete.”

Ok, so that’s not exactly what Einstein said, but we’re sure that if he had seen the DTrace Ponycorn, the office mascot of DTrace, he would have said something profound and insightful to illustrate its importance.

In his absence, we’d like to educate you on the history of this very important little ponycorn. As Brendan Gregg notes in his history of the DTrace ponycorn, back in the early days, if you had visited the “about” page of DTrace, you would have read:

DTrace is a magician that conjures up rainbows, ponies and unicorns — and does it all entirely safely and in production!

This inspired the creation of the DTrace ponycorn, who “x-rays turtle-slow software,” and finds bugs so you can fix them. While not officially endorsed by the creators of DTrace, the pony has been turning up in presentations about DTrace worldwide. You can purchase DTrace pony mugs and shirts in our Cafepress store.

You can also see the artistic process behind the DTrace ponycorn in the following video. Happy Friday!