I was browsing through the net and I've noticed people referring to "the elegans group of corydoras". But I had the impression that c. elegans of the elegant cory is only one particular cory, so now I'm confused. Can anybody explain what is meant by the elegans group of corydoras?
At the LFS, my fish was labeled corydoras elegans. Is this correct?--
The elegans group
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From the picture your fish do look like C. elegans. The term 'Elegans group' originated from a paper by Nijssen & Isbrücker in which they divided the Corydoras into groups based on their morphology, basically body shapes. The system was floored and found to be un workable almost as soon as it was published, but some of it remains in the hobby as a way of grouping certain species with similar characteristics such as C. elegans, C. napoensis. C. bilineatus, C. nanus, C41, C88, C89, C123, C126 & C132 and there are a couple more that do not even have C-numbers yet.
Ian
Ian