Interests: African catfishes and oddballs, Madagascar cichlids; stoner doom and heavy rock; old school choppers and riding them, fantasy novels, travelling and diving in the tropics and all things nature.
whatever happened to Corydoras latus?
that giant species in wich the females looked like a brochis-sized aeneus and the males had a reticulated pattern superimposed on the same body-color?
male
female
pictures by E schraml, I googled these.
the 'pantanalensis' in the catelog doesn't show the reticulated pattern in the male.....
Firstly C. latus in my opinion has never been seen in the hobby, the original description is very spaece and could be attached to a number of Cory species. I believe the type specimen is in the California Academy of Science and the pictures of the holotype measures 43 mm sl. which is not a big fish, well nothing like the ones that have been imported as such.
The pictures shown in sidguppy's post are C. geryi, this species and C. pantanalensis are very similar, the major difference being in the caudal fin in that C. pantanalensis does not have the vertical baring and C. geryi does. Another feature with C. pantanalensis is that it is only mature dominant males that show the mosaic body pattern. Thats why when we see them as fresh imports in our lfs's they all look a little bland and it is not untill they have settled down that dominant malesstart to show.
Here's what the original description of C. latus says about its color:
"General color blackish; all fins uniformly dark, all fins except the pectorals with a maroon tinge; a row of light dots above and below the lateral line, the dots due to the absence of chromatophores on the posterior edge of the scute. Above and below the dots the chromatophores spread out so that there is formed a dark stripe along the meeting lateral plates. Along the dorsal plates the chromatophores spread out more or less evenly. Along the ventral plates the chromatophores just below the dots spread out and then narrow to form a vertical stripe located either on the posterior edge or the middle of the plate. The vertical stripes decrease in length posteriorly so that a dark stripe decreasing in width backwards is formed."
Interests: African catfishes and oddballs, Madagascar cichlids; stoner doom and heavy rock; old school choppers and riding them, fantasy novels, travelling and diving in the tropics and all things nature.
Most of the trade here in the UK still insist on calling C. pantanalensis C. latus no matter what they are told, which is annoying to say the least. Many LFS proprietors would sooner believe what's on their invoices and will only take notice of the information on informative websites when it is to their financial advantage.
Ok, fair enough, but it doesn't look remotely like C. bilineatus. Are we presuming that it shows clear sexual dichromatism and that's why it's in the elegans group? What evidence do we have for that?
As I understand them the original groupings of Nijssen and Isbruecker were based on the geographical ranges of the species, but within a few of years of further study they rejected the grouping system because it proved unworkable due to the tremendous amount of overlapping of species. The maintaining of the elegans group in particular is mainly down to hobbyists and I am probably more to blame than anyone for it, but I consider it to be a valid group and may eventually follow S. barbatus and fall into a new or resurrected genus.
Not all members of the so called 'elegans' group show clearly defined sexual dichromatism, C. bilineatus is vary variable in colour pattern in both males and females, as does C. napoensis, sometimes it is very difficult to separate the sexes of these species on colour pattern alone. The profile shape of this group is in my opinion the main visual key. The lateral profile has a distinctive curved shape, which to a varying degree is a common factor throughout the group. There is the slender C. nanus at one end of the scale and C. undulatus at the deep bodied end. Seeing the size of the C. latus holotype I would put it in the same size and shape area as C. undulatus.
