PlanetCatfish.com

This is just a little niggle of mine.

More and more people are referring to their Corydoras, and Aspidoras as Corydora and Aspidora.
Corydoras and Aspidoras is the same spelling for a single specimen as it is for a hundred.

Ian

Yup, it's a bugbear all right. Some of it originates from exporters which have been using the term Corydora for decades.

And, while were are at it, the singular of species is species and not specie.

Jools

My theory for why importers and people sometimes refer to corydoras as corydora is in spanish that would be they correct conjugation. Sources: I speak spanish.

That makes sense, is that the same for Portuguese anyone?

Jools

Well, there are at least two way to prevent that:
1. CHECK YOUR SPELLING BEFORE USING CLOG TAGS
2. http://youtu.be/XbI-fDzUJXI?list=UUGm3C ... 7HIuyE0Rew

I too have seen "corydora" used by collectors in Colombia and on South American export lists. It has become, basically, a common name for the genus in the Spanish speaking aquarium trade. This makes some sense as all other common names for the genus are very regional and would not be recognized by an international audience.

It is not a conjugation as Corydoras is a noun and not a verb. I suspect the genus name is just being turned into a correct sounding noun by Spanish speakers. Spanish nouns almost always end in "o" (masculine) or "a" (feminine).

-Shane

PS We do the same thing frequently in English. An example that comes to mind is "buckaroo" for a cowboy which is actually the Spanish word "vaquero" (cowboy) anglicized. In the case above we are just seeing Latin a word (Corydoras) Spanishified (corydora)

I can imagine why Spanish people hate to say Corydoras - the -s makes it plural.

Frankly I'm a bit surprised English speaking people don't have the same problem, after all, in English -s almost always refers to plural too