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After completing my weekly water change and siphoning off the sand's surface detritus, I inspected all the catfish. I was at first shocked and thereafter quite amused to notice Pepper's strange development; he has developed a branched barbel! It appears to be completely natural and there's no sign of stress or disease in him. In fact, he even seems quite content with going right up to the surface along the glass to grab some freeze-dried tubifex! The really funny part is that only his left, dorsal maxillary barbel features this quite significant branching. In previously observing him, all his barbels were in a corys' typical, healthy condition.

Had this guy got the branching before I named him, he would now be known as Half-job!

It is fairly common in Corydoras.

I'm surprised I can't find anything on barbel branching in corys doing a Google search. I'd love to know more about it. Oh well, I think the mutation makes him cuter nonetheless! One extra whisker just makes him more unique when compared to the other four corys, I suppose.

Just means that the "new barbel growth" reaction was triggered in spite of the original barbel not having been fully severed. There's probably a "damage threshold" beyond which the physiological reaction kicks in.

It is a relatively common occurance but I must confess I've never noticed it in corys. Maybe I just don't pay them enough attention. I have seen it very often in big pims & synodontis

It was challenging, but I've recently shot and posted a picture of it on my "My Cats" page. Pepper's pretty patient with the flash from the camera; I must have shot 6 or 7 times until I got his branching discernible from the edging on the grains of sand!

Incidentally, I have seen a lot of confusion on just what exactly the rictal barbels are.

Using the members of the Corydoras genus as an example: I've seen the lower of the two barbels (in one set of these joined, 2-barbel sets) defined as a rictal barbel and the upper as a maxillary barbel; I've also seen the "rictal" barbels be defined as synonymous with "maxillary" barbels (i.e., designated as: the upper/dorsal maxillary/rictal barbel and the lower/ventral maxillary/rictal barbel); Got all that?

I would love to know if there is a definitive definition (or not) as to what entails the "rictal barbels". Does anyone know the answer?

I have had this in a young , which broke it's barbel, and the new barbed grew out "branched". I think the explanation about the "regrowth trigger" above is a good theory, and I expect what may happen is that there is mild damage during the regrowth that causes a "second regrowth" as a branch.

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Mats