Author: Ehrenberg, C. G. and F. G. Hemprich
Title: Symbolae physicae, seu, Icones et descriptiones corporum naturalium novorum aut minus cognitorum: quae ex itineribus per Libyam Aegyptum Nubiam Dongalam Syriam Arabiam et Habessiniam publico institutis sumptu Friderici Guilelmi Hemprich et Christiani Godofredi Ehrenberg: studio annis MDCCCXX-MDCCCXXV redierunt. [Engravings of the Nile arowana, and Nile arowana anatomy].
Description: Berolini, Georg Reimer, 1899. Two broadsheets (34.3 x 48.8 cm) with 11 (4, 7) fine engravings, including one in colour. Versos blank. = Two plates on the Nile arowana, a fish of considerable economical importance. The first plate shows an adult specimen, in original colouring, and a few external anatomical details. The second plate, titled Zootomica, is on the anatomy of the arowana. It was published more than half a century after being engraved for Ehrenberg and Hemprich's never completed Symbolae physicae. African arowana is used locally as a food fish and has been collected in the past for the aquarium trade. Adults may be one meter long. It is aquacultured in its native range, being a very successful culture due to its tolerance for crowding and ease of feeding. In some cases, introduction is reported to have had a negative impact on the local ecology. The title mentioned above was a zoological supplement, consisting of material left over after Ehrenberg's death. The fish section was edited by the German zoologist - chiefly malacologist and palaeontologist - Franz Martin Hilgendorf (1839-1904). Roellig, however, claims that a few copies were distributed during Ehrenberg's lifetime. The coloured plate is dated 1827, after an original drawing by Ehrenberg. The anatomical plate is not dated, but the age of the engraver (either Friedrich August Elsasser, born 1810, or his brother, Julius Albert Elsasser, born in 1814) renders such an early date quite impossible. Hilgendorf's most important claim to fame was his research on fossil snail faunas from the ancient, isolated Steinheim crater lake in Germany, providing palaeontological evidence for Charles Darwin's evolution theory. Edges uncut. Some light, marginal foxing, with on the anatomy plate one spot within the printed part, otherwise very good, clean. Dean I, p. 562; Nissen ZBI, 1247; Roellig (1968) The original publication of Heterotis Ehrenberg and Hemprich, 1828. Bull. Zool. Nom. 25, pp. 194-195.

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