Angels - PageSuite

AQUATIC
AMAZONAS
10
NOTEBOOK
A new mailed catfish
of the Corydoras aeneus group
Above: Male
Corydoras sp.
CW 68
by Erik Schiller In September 2009 my friend Ingo Seidel told me that he had
obtained a new mailed catfish with attractive yellow fins, which was slightly reminiscent
of Corydoras zygatus. The good news was that the collecting locality for this “new
species” was known. Jens Gottwald had caught the fishes at the Río Aripuaná in Brazil.
This fish has received the code number CW 68 on Ian Fuller’s CorydorasWorld site.
Corydoras zygatus, the Blackband Cory, comes from Peru, from the Río Huallaga system in the Río
Santiago. However, locations are also known from the Río Pindo in Ecuador. Because the distances
between these locations in Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil (Río Aripuaná) are extremely large, I originally
called this new mailed catfish from the Río Aripuaná Corydoras sp. “Río Aripuaná”. But because the
species has now been classified as CW 68, this code number should be used instead.
Corydoras sp. CW 7 is another similar species. The precise location for this species is not
known, but it is a bycatch with Corydoras zygatus. So these catfishes definitely don’t come from
Brazil!
Naturally, I was very interested, but my space is limited, with 25 aquariums. So for the time
being, Ingo kept the small group of specimens. But because he had also acquired a large number of
other new catfishes, there was no question of breeding the Corydoras from the Río Aripuaná right
away. Two years passed before I picked up three Corydoras from Ingo in September 2011. Unfortunately,
there was no longer any sign of the yellow fins, but in both sexes the dark stripe above the
midline was readily visible. I received a trio of one female and two males—a good starting point for
successful breeding.
SEIDEL I.