16th July 2019 :: What's up with the Corys?

[Jools]

Hi All,

Introducing Corydoradinae lineages, or ln for short.

I've been meaning to "split" Corydoras for a long time. In my view, although it's a matter of time and of significant effort before old genera are resurrected or new ones created. This is, after all, the most popular of the catfish "mega-genera". I thought it is better to get started but important to do so without overstepping the mark.

It is for the wonderful and dedicated scientists working in the field to name our catfishes or re-assign them as old species are reconsidered or new ones created. So, I've not gone as far as using old genera as this would be somewhere between confusing and disrespectful to the scientists working hard on these brilliant species.

What I have done is begun the processes of splitting Corydoras into the various lineages(ln) and sub-clades(sc) that have been published for a while. There are three reasons for this, firstly, it reflects the care needed for the various groups and helps aquarists better group what they're dealing with. The second is that it's going to be a lot of work to do this, so making a start is good. Dearest to me, is the third, what have we missed? If we move everything in the cat-elog to one "bucket" or another then what is left that needs thinking about?

The new "buckets" are as follows:

Corydoras (lineage 1) remains as is and will eventually only contain the macho saddle snouted species, for example Corydoras acutus.

Aspidoras (lineage 2) remains as is.

Scleromystax (lineage 3) remains as is.

Corydoras(ln4) (lineage 4) is where the fun begins. Maybe one day this will become Microcorydoras, but for now, it's ln4.

Corydoras(ln5) (lineage 5) is broadly Nijssen's elegans group and maybe one day this will become Gastrodermus, but for now, it's ln5.

Corydoras(ln6) (lineage 6) is a new beast containing some old ones such as the evergreen Peppered Cory.

Corydoras(ln7) (lineage 7) is where the bronze corys and relations live, maybe one day this will become Osteogaster and see a raft of species that are currently lumped into C. aeneus split out.

Lineage 8 is the complex one and contains the slightly snouty corys. It is divided into four sub-clades.

Brochis is lineage 8, sub-clade 1. Technically these should all currently be known as Corydoras. But it's confusing enough without that!

Corydoras(ln8sc2) is lineage 8, sub-clade 2, a small bunch of mostly peppered higher bodied spp.
Corydoras(ln8sc3) is lineage 8, sub-clade 3, a small bunch of mostly reticulated higher bodied spp.
Corydoras(ln8sc4) is lineage 8, sub-clade 4, a large group of higher bodied spp. that are a bit triangular in lateral portrait.

Corydoras(ln9) is lineage 9, is the motherload. Here are the classic round-headed corys from C. adolfoi to C. weitzmani. One day these may all use the old name Hoplosoma.

I did consider Corydoras(04) as opposed to Corydoras(ln4) or Corydoras(82) as opposed to Corydoras(ln8sc2), and I could still change this, the important focus should be however getting them all into their new "buckets". Then, maybe we can change it, but it's new, so best leaving it for a while.

I'll be moving batches of spp. over the coming days and weeks.

Can we still call them corys? Yes, of course, they are all Corydoradinae after all.

Jools

[Jools]

The attached is a really nice graphic from the paper which gives a visual overview of this.

[Jools]

A minor update, we've now sunk Brochis and moved them into Corydoras(ln8sc1).

Jools

[Jools]

Just to note this thread is now linked in from species profiles, to explain the situation.

Jools

[Tony4143]

Thanks for putting in the work
-Tony