Auction bag labled C. haraldschultzi

[Marine590622]

As is was filling out my My Cats entries I realized they are not C. haraldschultzi, but upon further review of the Cat-elog entries I decided they were Corydoras schwartzi so I listed them as this. I thought I would post some pictures to get expert confirmation.

[Marine590622]

[Marine590622]

[Marine590622]

Hopefully, those photos are good enough, but as I sit here watching them, they are starting to explore the photo tank so I made add a few more.

[Marine590622]

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

definitely no C. haraldschultzi and most likely C. schwartzi or closely related.

Cheers,

[Narwhal72]

Yep definitely not C. haraldschultzi.

C. haraldschultzi look like sterbai except the pattern is reversed (dark spots on a light body opposed to light spots on a dark body).

I think Rob and myself are the only ones who have haraldshultzi in the area right now.

Andy

[corybreed]

The fish are probably schwartzi. Haraldschultzi are much larger than sterbai and have a long snout.

Mark

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

size is not a good criterion...

My C. sterbai (WC) also had 8 cm, my C. haraldschultzi had on average the same size. However, some specimen even reached 9 cm.
The (usually) bigger size of C. haraldschultzi is mainly due to the fact that you usually will only get wild caughts whereas C. sterbai are mostly tank bred.

Cheers,

[Narwhal72]

I agree that size is not a good criterion for identification. Especially when there is a really distinctive color pattern difference.

[Marine590622]

Some of the photos on Cat-eLog like this one
http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/ima ... ge_id=3458

show a distinctive gold or yellow dorsal spike. I was wondering if amoung the simularly patterned corries if this gold dorsal spike is diagnostic in iding the species?

[corybreed]

As I previously stated, the shape of the snout is a major difference between haraldschultzi and sterbai as well as the color pattern.

Mark

[Marine590622]

Mark, I never mentioned sterbai, I got them labeled as haraldschultzi and upon review of Cat-eLog decided they were probably Corydoras schwartzi. That ID has been confirmed. Moving on my question now is is the gold dorsal spine diagnostic for the species?

[Narwhal72]

Corydoras pulcher and CW028 also have a gold dorsal spike and a similar pattern.

[Marine590622]

Thanks Andy, I will look closely at those as well.

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

this is certainly no C. pulcher which is a long snouted species.
I would also rule out CW028 which has elongated dorsal fins, a clearer stripe pattern.

Cheers,

[Narwhal72]

I didn't think they were. I was just referring to the fact that there are multiple species with a gold dorsal spine and a similar pattern. So the Gold dorsal spine cannot be used as an identifying characteristic.

[Marine590622]

In and of itself. The fact that it has the gold dorsal spine can be used to rule out species that are marked similarily, but lack the gold spike, correct?

[Narwhal72]

Yes you could rule out similarly patterned species that do not have a gold dorsal spine.