781 - Georg August Goldfuß, Natural History Atlas, volume containing 55 plates, 1824-42

Georg August Goldfuß, Natural History Atlas, volume containing 55 plates, 1824-42 Georg August Goldfuß, Natural History Atlas, folio volume containing 55 plates, plate CL I Protozoa 6 x, CL H. Enthelm., CL IV Radiara, CL VI Insecta, CL VII Mollusca, CL VIII Pisces, CL IX Reptilia, CL XI Mammalia 25 x, CL X Aves 18 x, some pages with foxing and water stains, torn in two places and repaired, rebound in semi linen About the author: Georg August Goldfuß was a German palaeontologist, zoologist and professor. In 1804, he obtained his doctorate at the University of Erlangen with a thesis on a South African beetle. He also conducted field research in South Africa. From 1811 to 1818, he was a lecturer and administrator in the Department of Zoology in Erlangen. During this time, he also took an interest in newly discovered fossils and was one of the early German palaeontologists. In 1818, he introduced the concept of protozoa into science. He was elected a member of the Leopoldina, Germany’s oldest scientific and medical society, and was appointed secretary of the organisation responsible for the library and specimen collections. Concerned about the decline of the University of Erlangen, he and others arranged for the transfer of the Leopoldina’s collections to the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, where he became Professor of Palaeontology and Mineralogy. A prolific author, he published numerous books and articles on zoology and identified new species such as the koala and the Cervidae (deer). Goldfuss is known for his major study of invertebrate fossils found in Germany, *Petrefacta Germaniae* (1826-1844), which remained unfinished at the time of his death, and for the *Naturalist Atlas* (Düsseldorf: 1824-43), a comprehensive illustrated study of animals.