Happy Little Cory Somethings

[JustKia]

Picked up 5 little (well, TINY) cory hastatus/pygmaeus* yesterday - now in with the frogs, in the tank that the betta will go into.
Well, well, well, they are active, nosey little critters.
Made themselves comfortable on some leaves for a while, had a mosey round the substrate (they were on large round gravel in the LFS, now on sand here).
They are schooling (or is it shoaling?) and just generally making themselves quite visible But they are just so very little. I did have a few moments, when I first added them in, of worrying that they might become frog supper. They are definitely braver than the frogs.

Now, just to work out how to persuade my camera to take (reasonable) pics of little things

Edit:
*never believe without checking pics.
Turns out these "hastatus" are actually pygmaeus
I simply asked for pgymy corys and LFS said they only had hastatus - fine by me, only they aren't hastatus - no wonder they are so outgoing

Edit2:
Well who knows what they are - body of pygmaeus, tail of hastatus - maybe they are hastmaeus?

 

[Truck]

looking forward to pics

 

[Inchworm]

Hi JustKia

I'm so happy that you bought some of them. They are so cute but still perfect little corys. I can't wait to see the pictures.

 

[Truck]

are they a species of pygmy cory? how big do they grow

 

[JustKia]

Yep, hastatus are one of the pygmies - habrosus and pygmaeus being the others (I believe).
Right now these little guys are about 1/2 inch, at most, including the tail.

Although, just googled to see how big they get for you and I think I've been mis-sold looking at several google results these little dudes are clearly pygmaeus.
Not, that I'm fussed as I simply asked for pygmy corys and was told "yep, but we've only got hastatus".
Ah, guess that explains why they are more outgoing...

But to answer your question - less than 1.5inches

 

[Truck]

thanks for the research, im buying cories for a rio 125 and dont know which species to go for.

 

[JustKia]

If you're planning on putting them in a community tank I'd probably go for the bigger corys - there's simply loads of cory sp so you don't have to go with the "usual", but the little dudes often don't fare as well in a busy community because they are so little.
Have a looksie here http/www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/genus.php?genus_id=1 at the different species available and see what takes your eye

 

[Truck]

thanks for the link

 

[OldMan47]

They are easy to tell apart Kia. The hastatus have a black dot at the base of their tail with a white highlight above and below it just like these.

The pygmaeus have a line that runs down the length of their body like this one shown on the left with a Heterandria formosa on the right.

The habrosus have blotches of color on their body and look more a typical cory shape like this one.

Once you look at them for a few minutes, nobody will be able to confuse you again. It turns out that you have pygmaeus so you have one that is a bit less shy than the hastatus. In a community tank, that will turn out to be a good thing for you. To get pictures you get back about 2 or 3 feet from the tank and use the zoom lens to pull the fish in as close as you can. When you dump the picture onto your hard drive, you crop out about 95% of the picture and what little you have left is often recognizable as a fish. With 20 to 30 pictures of a single fish, you can often get one that is close to being in focus.

 

[JustKia]

Oh heck, now I'm even more confused.
These little guys have a narrow(ish) solid black line from nose to tail but they do have small white flashes/dots at the base of their tails...
Almost like the tail of a hastatus on a pygmaeus