Blackcheek moray eel

Zoological study of a blackcheek moray eel, Gymnothorax breedeni, referred to here as Muraena maculate nigra, shown against some broccoli coral, Litophyton arboreum.

Inscribed below: ‘Muraena maculate nigra Lithophyton &c’

Plate 21 from volume II of Mark Catesby’s The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731).

Mark Catesby (1683-1749), British naturalist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1733. Travelling under the auspices of the Royal Society, Catesby recorded the earliest western scientific descriptions of the flora and fauna of the ‘New World’. He was the first naturalist to use folio-sized colour plates in a natural history book, and etched the copper plates himself before hand-colouring each individual print with watercolours.