Specht was a German painter and natural history illustrator. He provided illustrations of animals and landscapes for a large number of zoology and veterinary science publications, notably for the first edition of Brehms Tierleben (1864–69), Brockhaus and Efron Encloclopedic Dictionary (1890—1907), Karl Christoph Vogt’s Die Säugetiere in Wort und Bild (1883–89) and Richard Lydekker’s Royal Natural History (1893–96).