Corydoras elegans

[Slaigar]

Hello All,
I have not been posting much since classes have started but I still check the forum daily.

A few weeks back, I picked up ten Corydoras elegans. They looked beautiful as a shoal so I had to grab them. I do not know much on cories, so can anyone verify that it is C. elegans from the picture? The photos I have seen on the internet shown high variability.

Two of them were nice enough to let me grab a photo:

[shortman]

Mark,

It does look like one from this url

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog...dora/110_f.php

Let see what Stormhawk(jian yang) said about it.

Best Regards

[TyroneGenade]

My first thought was Corydoras napoensis. Do you fish look like the ones pictured here?

C. elegans has nicely patterned males but the females are dull... or the other way round. It was a long time since I kept them.

Regards

[stormhawk]

Mark, in short, what you have MAY be C. elegans. Otherwise its one of the related species in a rather confusing group of similar looking fish. C. elegans is a variable species but not too difficult to differentiate among similar-looking species.

If you could get a nicer clearer picture I might be able to tell you what it is. Their current sizes would be a great help as well. :wink:

Napoensis males have a black blotch on the dorsal fin (if I recall correctly), and their sides have a golden-like sheen, especially on the reticulations among the black marbling pattern on the sides. Napoensis females are more dully coloured with a more greyish tone.

[Slaigar]

I managed to grab a photo of the oddball cory in the group. Nine of the fish look like the first photo, while a single one looks like this:


Female, or another cory species that got mixed with the bunch? It is quite dull when compared with the other nine cories.

It is hard to make out from the photo, but all the fish have a slight orange tinge on their heads. Not as strong as C. adolfoi, but it is certainly there. I will see if I can grab a clearer picture and approximate sizes later tonight.

[stormhawk]

I think the two cats in the first pic are C. nanus. I did some editing on your picture and it seems that they look alot more like nanus than they do like elegans.

The elegans group is a hodgepodge of described and undescribed species.

[Slaigar]

Here are some hi-res photos of the fish. Hope it is a bit clearer.




Cories are new to me, so I have a hard time differentiating between species. Thanks for the help on clearing it up, Jianyang.

[stormhawk]

From the body markings and dorsal fin markings, I am at least 75% sure that its C. nanus. The darker fella that you obtained with the bunch, do you have a clearer picture of it?

[Slaigar]

Getting the photo of the oddball in the bunch was difficult! The colours are off but it is mostly grey with a slight green reflection and the orange stripe which runs along the top of the fish.



The largest of the Cories is about 1.75". The oddball is about 1.5".

[stormhawk]

They should be all nanus except for the odd fella. I think nanus females have the same dorsal fin markings as the males.

That said, I can safely ID the others as C. nanus. The odd fella may probably be a female elegans which was mixed in.

Check the pelvic fins, male corys have pelvic fins that end in an acute angle or rather, a pointed end. Female corys have rounded-edge pelvic fins. They use this to collect the eggs and deposit them so the round-edge fins become something like a "cup" of sorts.