Gossei vs. Seussi

philtre · Post by **philtre** » 31 Aug 2003, 08:10

Hi All,

I know that gossei compared to seussi, gosseis have a rounder face. Beside this, is there any other distinguishing factors? Then what about short nose seussi!? What would be the distinguishing factor?

Also, there are some specimens of gossei where their face is more spotted and the rest are more of a "solid" colour. Would this be a variant? What could it be then?

Appreciate any comments on the above. Thanks very much in advance

Attaching a pic in reference to my point about spotted face:

philtre · Post by **philtre** » 31 Aug 2003, 10:46

hi all,

sorry ... forgot about the membership thingie ... here's the pic. Courtesy of fellow Corymaniac Zealot

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YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 31 Aug 2003, 10:49

That looks a bit like <I>C. sterbai</I> to me? I would also worry about hybridization - both C. sterbai and C. gossei are reasonably easy to breed.

Jools

philtre · Post by **philtre** » 31 Aug 2003, 10:52

Hi Jools,

thanks for your quick reply. well, imho, I don't think it's a sterbai. it should be gossei or a var or a short nose seussi of some kind? just wondering what kind it is. hehehe.

the spotted head is making me really curious. have seen it in other pics before too. let me see if I can find any as examples.

philtre · Post by **philtre** » 31 Aug 2003, 11:00

ok ... here they are

check out this pic
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/ca ... /388_5.htm
for the spotted head variants that I was talking about

and this is the non-spotted kinds
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/ca ... /388_4.htm

hehehe .... any ideas anyone? Thanks in advance!
Thanks!

PS: I quite sure these fellas were wild caught. Unless it's a natural hybrid. In the lot, most of them are the non-spotted kinds. but there's one or two that has that spotted markings.

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 31 Aug 2003, 11:02

If they are wild caught then you can find out where they came from? That would help.

Yeah, I know what you mean, there is some variance within gossei and that is evidenced by the pictures from the cat-elog. It's just that the picture you post is spotted all over even on the body. It _could_ just be another population of C. gossei - I wonder if Ian is following this post...

Jools

Post by **Coryman** » 31 Aug 2003, 17:57

C. gossei are quite variable with regard to the head/body speckling and I personally don't put too much into the fact that some have more speckling than others.

However there is also another factor that could come into play, which has not really been looked at that deeply with Corydoras, this is Alpha dominance. If you have a reasonable shoal of a colourful species like C. gossei it will be easier to observe any colour changes, there will almost certainly be a couple of dominant males and even females present in a large group. One way to check this theory out would be to put four or five pairs together and when the emerging dominant male statrs to show his colours remove him and see what hapens to the rest, it may very well be that only alpha males/females show the intense speckling. I only have a trio at the moment so I am not in a position try the experiment, but if you have enough give it a try I would be interested to see the results.
I reallly don't think that there is any point in trying to split either C. gossei or C. seussi into long and short nose groups, after all what is C. seussi if not a long nosed C. gossei in the first place!! If you check out the colour of the fin spines of each species you will find that C. gossei have yellow/orange spines and C. seussi have salmon pink spines, there is also a hint of this colour on the sides of the body.

Ian