Corydoras aeneus?

[ack210]

Hi, could anyone provide a definitive id on my cory? I'm pretty certain she's a corydoras aeneus, but after delving in to all the types of corydoras out there some doubt has crept in. I've had her for so long (8+ years) I'm not sure what she was sold as. Thanks for any insight!

[Jools]

Yes, the ID is good. Really nice picture BTW - fins are in perfect position.

Cheers,

Jools

[ack210]

Awesome, thank you so much!

[bekateen]

Yes that is a good pose. Your fish is splendid. As with so many of my aquarium photos, I see you have a blue-green tint going on there, undoubtedly from the lighting. Hopefully you don't mind, I took the liberty of "retouching" it for you if you'd like it without the tint and trimmed the gravel along the glass front. Does this look pretty accurate?

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

Nice work Eric.

ack210, if you're up for it, I'd like to add the picture to the species profile - the third picture in there is nearly 20 years old and I think yours is more representative of the species. Can let me know here or by PM your thoughts? Will need your full name for the image credit/copyright info.

Cheers,

Jools

[ack210]

Thank you so much Eric, I love it!

Jools- I'm flattered you'd like to include it on the species profile!

I hope this makes things easy: I published the photo to Wikimedia Commons and released all rights to it under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... eneus).jpg

This should let you use it without having to worry about copyright/attribution now (or use Eric's touched up version if he allows). Let me know if there's anything else I can do to be helpful!

[bekateen]

Hi ack210,

The retouched photos I created are still your photos. If you like them better than the original with the hue, please take them and use them whereever you please. I take no credit for them.

Cheers, Eric

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

it's definitely not C. aeneus in sensu stricto and I would not even call it C. aeneus at all but C. melanotaenia even though the fins are not so bright yellow to exclude all doubts...

There are so many C. aeneus look-a-likes in South America.
One thing is clear, it's a really nice shot of a nice cory

Cheers,

[ack210]

Thanks for the input Karsten (although not what I wanted to hear now that I thought I had finally gotten some certainty!).

One thing I could add that may be helpful is that she has laid eggs a number of times now (part of the motivation for this post in the first place), and they have always been attached the glass, which seems to be typical of c. aeneus. Looking at the wikipedia entry for C. Melanotaenia it seems to suggest that in captivity they attach the eggs to the broad leaves of plants (though of course, not sure how accurate/reliable that is).

If by chance it's at all helpful, I've attached a picture of some of the eggs from earlier this summer, though it's not the best quality (and apparently I've set the bar high with my first post ). I think she might be about to lay again, so I'll try to get a better close-up this time if it could be helpful (or maybe there's something else I could be looking for that could be illuminating?).

[bekateen]

it's definitely not C. aeneus in sensu stricto and I would not even call it C. aeneus at all but C. melanotaenia even though the fins are not so bright yellow to exclude all doubts...

There are so many C. aeneus look-a-likes in South America.

This is the very typical C. aeneus in America, yes. As to

Corydoras(Ln7) melanotaenia

, besides lacking the yellow-green finnage (esp. the tail), I would counter that all of the C. melanotaenia I've ever seen are very elongate relative to body girth. This fish is much shorter and stockier in proportion relative to C. melanotaenia I'm familiar with. I would not call this C. melanotaenia myself.

Most accurately though, you are right that there are so many fish sold as C. aeneus in America. And tragically, since most if not all are farmed (except with specifically imported), then who knows what we're getting exactly?

Cheers, Eric

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

well, I kept C. melanotaenia quite a time ago and the extent to which they show the yellow colour can vary significantly and I do see yellow ventral fins which is not known for "standard" C. aeneus (which is not C. aeneus in sensu stricto) but there are definitely other forms of the aeneus group with yellowish fins. The not very pronounced yellow colour is for me defintely not ruling out C. melanotaenia.
As for the body shape above fish seems to be a female and the body shape is comparatively elongate, this is for me also not ruling out C. melanotaenia, rather the opposite. The snout is quite acute unlike most of the other members of the aeneus group (e.g. C. schultzei) but exactly fitting to C. melanotaenia. I have never seen in the trade in Europe any other form of the aeneus group that would fit this specimen.
I'm not completely sure with my ID, but I would definitely not recommend to use this very nice picture for the species page of C. aeneus.

Cheers,