He returned to Berlin with an enormous collection of natural history specimens, which he then described in Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique... in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführt (1852–1882).

The work was comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany.

He replaced Martin Lichtenstein as curator of the museum in 1858, and in the same year he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In a few years, he greatly increased the Berlin Museum's herpetological collection to a size comparable to those of Paris and London.

His older brother was the German-born American Astronomer Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters.