Riesenschildkröte.

Title

Riesenschildkröte.

Description

Illustration of a giant tortoise.

ca. 1840

Artist

Medau (1791-1866)

Carl Wilhelm Medau was a German lithographer, book printer and publisher. He was active in 1829-1850. Carl Wilhelm Medau trained as a printer in Stettin. At the age of twenty-two, he moved to Leitmeritz as an experienced printer, where he worked for the printer F. K. Laube. After Laube's death in 1816, Medau married his widow Elizabeth Laube and became co-owner of the company, which was renamed “C. W. Medau”. The company was modernized, expanded and, in addition to the lithography, also had a book and art trade as well as its own publishing house. He was one of the pioneers of lithography and woodblock printing in Bohemia. In 1843, he founded a branch in Prague.

Historical Description

With the exception of the polar regions and high mountains, turtles colonize all continents and oceans. They can be found in various natural habitats, in tropical forests and swamps, in deserts and semi-deserts, lakes, ponds, rivers, brackish water areas and seas, in temperate, tropical and subtropical climate zones. In Europe there are only nine autochthonous species apart from the sea turtles, four land and five water turtle species. They belong to the Sauropsida order and first appeared more than 220 million years ago in the Carnian (Upper Triassic). They range from Mediterranean land turtle species, gopher or desert tortoises and the particularly numerous, smaller water turtle species in North America and Southeast Asia to large river turtles in South America, giant tortoises on some island groups, soft-shelled turtles in Asia and snake-necked turtles in Australia, right up to the largest, the leatherback turtles, which form a family of their own alongside the sea turtles.