As a polymath with an interest in natural history, and informed by the local Aranda people, Strehlow provided plant and animal specimens to museums in Germany and Australia. Strehlow also collaborated on the first complete translation of the New Testament into an Aboriginal language (Dieri), published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1897. He later translated the New Testament into the Western Aranda language and also produced a reader and service book in this language. His son Theodor (Ted) Strehlow, who was 14 at the time of his father's death, built his career in part on the researches carried out by his father.