NEWS104
26
he species that we bring you
exclusively intheNEWSthistimewere
imported by Aquarium Glaser in Rodgau
and originate from the Madre de Dios
region.Thisregion lies intheextremesouth-
east of Peru and is particularly interesting
zoogeographically as regards fishes, as the
main river of the region, the RioMadre de
Dios, flows east, rather than north to the
Amazon liketheotherrivers inPeruthatrise
in theAndes. Instead theRioMadredeDios
first flowspastBolivia,where itempties into
the Rio Beni, which joins with the Rio
Marmoré inBrazil to form the RioMadeira,
T
Corydoras
sp.C91Longnose,pair. All photos:FrankSchäfer
Onewould think that withmore than 200 scientifically described, and as
many again scientifically undescribed, mailed catfish species (the latter
haveC- andCW-numbers) therewouldhave tobeahalt at some time.Far
from it!Whenever the fish collectors leave the troddenpaths and look for
fishes innewareas, therearealwaysnewmailed catfishes among them!
Newmailedcatfishes
fromPeru
byFrankSchäfer
whicheventuallyempties into theAmazon.
With a length of more than 1,100 km, the
MadredeDios is the largest tributaryof the
Rio Madeira. It flows through three
provinces in Peru, one of which is the
provinceofManu, fromwhich someof the
new imports take their provisional trade
names.
Three of the new
Corydoras
from a typical
species triowith a round-nose (body form
and coloration similar to
C. julii
, but with a
gorgeous, boldly striped caudal fin , list
name"manu5shortnose"),a long-nose (list
name "manu 2 semi long nose"), and a
saddle-nose (listname "manu1 longnose").
The round-nose is known in the hobby as
C120, the saddle-nose as C115/116.
Whetherthreeadditional saddle-noseswith
stripedcaudal fins (listnames"manu4,7,8")
are actually new species or only pattern
variants of the same species (C115/116)
requires furtherresearch.Butgiventhewell-
known variability in coloration in the
saddle-noses the latter is more likely.
C115/116 was brought back years ago on
the private initiative of Martin and Peter
Hoffmann and also successfully bred. This
demonstrated that C115 and C116,
originally regarded as different species,
were in reality just variants of the same
species, as even identically coloredparents
produced very variant-rich offspring. The
Corydoras
Corydoras
sp.C91
