Kuhl was born inHanau (Hesse, Germany). Between 1817 and 1820, he was the assistant of professor Th. van Swinderen, docent ofnatural history at theUniversity of Groningen inGroningen (the Netherlands). In 1817, he published a monograph onbats, and in 1819, he published a survey of theparrots,Conspectus psittacorum. He also published the first monograph on thepetrels, and a list of all the birds illustrated inDaubenton'sPlanches Enluminées and with his friendJohan Coenraad van Hasselt (1797–1823)Beiträge zur Zoologie und vergleichenden Anatomie ("Contributions to Zoology and Comparative Anatomy") that were published at Frankfurt-am-Main, 1820.
He described many newspecies and newgenera of amphibians and reptiles.[3][4]
In 1821, he died in Buitenzorg (nowBogor) of a liver infection brought on by the climate and overexertion. He had been less than a year in Java. Johan van Hasselt continued his work collecting specimens, but died two years later. The partners are buried in a single grave in theBotanical Garden, Bogor, marked with a small column.[5]
^Frost, Darrel R. (2024).""Kuhl"".Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.2. American Museum of Natural History.doi:10.5531/db.vz.0001.
^Huylebrouck J (2014). "Viviparous Halfbeaks of the family Zenarchopteridae".Amazonas: Freshwater Aquariums & Tropical Discovery. illustration, p. 23.
^abBeolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011).The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp.ISBN978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Kuhl", p. 147).
