Four new Corydoradinae species described

[Byron]

Ian Fuller has announced on CorydorasWorld that four new species of Corydoradinae have been described, three Corydoras and one Aspidoras.

The three Corydoras occur in the Rio Jamanxim basin, a tributary to the Rio Tapajós in the Brazilian state of Para. The species are Corydoras thanatos (previously CW 146), Corydoras psamathos (CW 172) and Corydoras hypnos (CW 173). Citing from the paper's Abstract,

An expedition crowdfunded by aquarists to a region of the Brazilian state of Pará drained by the Tapajós and Xingu river basins resulted in the capture of five species of Corydoras from the rio Jamanxim basin, a tributary to the rio Tapajós, of which three could be confirmed as new and described herein. The new species can be promptly diagnosed from their congeners by the combination of features related to color pattern and osteology. Considering the gathered information on color patterns and morphology plus field observations, the new species are considered to compose two distinct Müllerian mimicry rings, with two of them forming a mimetic pair, while the third one forms a pair with a fourth non-identified species captured in the same expedition. An identification key to the species of Corydoras from the rio Tapajos basin is also provided.​

​

Luiz Fernando Caserta Tencatt, Willian Massaharu Ohara, Leandro Melo de Sousa, and Marcelo Ribeiro de Britto, "Science and hobby joining forces for the discovery of three new Corydoras (Siluriformes: Callichthyidae) from the rio Tapajos basin, Brazil, with comments on Corydoras sp. CW 111," Neotropical Ichthyology 20 (03), 2022.​

The photo below of C. thanatos comes from PlanetCatfish where these species are also announced, but the only other photos of these species so far as I am aware are those in the paper (and which I cannot copy to post). The paper is accessible online free of charge:

Science and hobby joining forces for the discovery of three new <i>Corydoras</i> (Siluriformes: Callichthyidae) from the rio Tapajós basin, Brazil, with comments on <i>Corydoras</i> sp. CW111

Abstract An expedition crowdfunded by aquarists to a region of the Brazilian state of Pará...

www.scielo.br

The fourth species is Aspidoras aldebaran (CW 141).

Luiz Fernando Caerta Tencatt, Marcelo R. Britto, Isaac Jan Hendrik Isbrucker and Carla Simone Pavanelli, "Taxonomy of the armoured catfish genus Aspidoras (Siluriformes: Callichthyidae) revisited, with the description of a new species." Neotropical Ichthyology 20 (03), 2022.

Taxonomy of the armored catfish genus <i>Aspidoras</i> (Siluriformes: Callichthyidae) revisited, with the description of a new species

Abstract Aspidoras comprises 25 species currently considered as valid, being widely distributed...

www.scielo.br

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I just had the privalege of meeting and talking with Leandro last weekend at the CatFish Convention. He was kind enough to sign my IctioXingu poster. All of the plecos I breed come from the Big Bend of the Xingu. I have also been lucky to have met Ian and to thank him for all the good cory info he has provided and for the work hes has done which benefits hobbyists the world over.

At prior conventions I was fortunate to meet and talk with both Ingo Seidel and Hans-Georg Evers. Barbie Fiorentino trained me 20 years ago and I have a Xingu rock given to me my by Jools of Planet Catfish. I have managed to meet a lot of the worlds best pleco/cafish experts over the years. And every one of them was as nice a person as well as being an expert in the field.

 

[GaryE]

I think that if you choose to wander deeper into the water in this hobby, and you start to meet the "names", they are usually approachable. I'm not a catfish guy, but I seem to be tilting in the Cory direction with time. I've had a few of the guys @TwoTankAmin mentions in my fishroom, a few times, and they are as open as you could wish. They really like fish.

Papers like the ones @Byron posted are not the easiest reading, but I highly recommend that anyone who likes Corys bookmarks them. You may be dabbling in easy to get Corys now, but someday if you see an Aspidoras or stumble across one of the rarer Corydoras, you'll discover there may not be a lot of info beyond what is in these valuable pdf papers. And even if not, you can never learn too much. We sell ourselves short if we pretend there are levels of learning we can't get to - there aren't.

The most important info about a fish is where it comes from and what conditions there are like. If you have that, it's up to you to figure out how to make that info work for you, and for the fish you've found.

 

[Byron]

Well said, both of you. There is always an "Ecological" section in Luiz Tencatt's papers, containing very detailed information on the habitat conditions.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I cannot help myself so,