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Corydoras

Roberto E. Reis
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At present, Corydoras represents the largest catfish genus, with 130 valid species and new species being described every year. These species will be listed here at a later time.

Type-species: Corydoras geoffroy Lacépède, 1803 (=C. punctatus Bloch, 1794).

See the Complete Catalogue for a list of species, authorships, synonyms, type-localities, and references.

Containing group: Callichthyidae

Introduction

A key to the species of Corydoras is not available at this moment, but some books like Burgess (1987) or Burgess (1989) present good pictures of most species which, associated with locality data, allow a reliable identification in most instances. Also, for a few regions in South America, there exist some taxonomic reviews, like Nijssen (1970) for Surinam, Nijssen & Isbrücker (1983) for Colombia and Nijssen & Isbrücker (1986) for Peru and Ecuador. Several species, however, have been described since the publication of the above reviews. Consult the Complete Catalogue and the List of Original Literature for an updated list of species and publications containing descriptions of new species.

Diagnosis

There are some synapomorphies diagnosing the tribe Corydoradini, which includes Corydoras and Brochis, but no one single derived feature was found to be shared by the species of Corydoras. The fact that no synapomorphies were found to diagnose Corydoras, as traditionally defined (Gosline, 1940), suggests that this genus is paraphyletic. The paraphyletic nature of Corydoras, however, is a consequence of recognizing Brochis as a separate genus. Additional phylogenetic studies of this clade are necessary before a reearrangement of Corydoras can be made.

Distribution

The species of Corydoras usually have more restricted areas of endemism than other callichthyids, but the area of distribution of the entire genus almost equals the area of distribution of the family, except for Panama where Corydoras is not present.

Title Illustrations
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Scientific Name Corydoras garbei
Location Montes Claros, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0.
Copyright © 1996 Roberto E. Reis
About This Page

Roberto E. Reis
Museu de Ciências e Tecnologia da PUCRS, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Page: Tree of Life Corydoras. Authored by Roberto E. Reis. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.

Citing this page:

Reis, Roberto E. 1996. Corydoras. Version 29 April 1996 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Corydoras/15344/1996.04.29 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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