One of the most prized shell publications of the 19th century, a series of books titled "" (published by the French naturalist Jean-Charles Chenu from 1842 to 1853), contains illustrations of both adult and juvenile "A. gigas" shells and one uncoloured drawing depicting some of the animal's soft parts. Almost forty years later, a colored illustration from the "Manual of Conchology" (published in 1885 by the American malacologist George Washington Tryon) shows a dorsal view of a small juvenile shell with its typical brown and white patterning.