Giclee reprint of an original lithograph from the Piscium Volume of Christian Gottlib Ehrenberg’s Symbolae physicae, a multi-volume 19th-century natural history work written by German naturalists Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg and Friedrich Wilhelm Hemprich, published in installments beginning in Berlin in 1828.

The series documents the immense biological and geological collections gathered during their state-sponsored scientific expedition through Egypt, Libya, Nubia, Syria, Arabia, and Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) between 1820 and 1825. Tragically, Hemprich died of malaria during the voyage, leaving Ehrenberg to catalog their massive findings alone. The resulting volumes are structurally divided into zoological, botanical, and micro-geological series, celebrated for their highly detailed, hand-colored lithographic plates that provided the Western scientific community with some of its first accurate, lifelike anatomical illustrations of Middle Eastern and North African wildlife.

This exceptionally detailed lithograph illustrates the African bonytongue or African arowana, designated by the creators with the historical taxonomic name "Heterotis nilotica" (now classified as Heterotis niloticus). The plate showcases a beautifully rendered side profile of the Nile Riverfreshwater fish at roughly one-half its natural size, capturing its large, distinctively heavily armored scales and elongated dorsal and anal fins. Sketched beneath the main profile are  anatomical details—including cross-sectional views of individual scales and a structural cross-section of the body.