The banded corydoras or bearded catfish (''Scleromystax barbatus'') is a subtropical freshwater

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

belonging to the subfamily

Corydoradinae Callichthyidae is a family of catfishes (order Siluriformes), called armored catfishes due to the two rows of bony plates (or scutes) along the lengths of their bodies. It contains some of the most popular freshwater aquarium fish, such as many s ...

of the family

Callichthyidae Callichthyidae is a family of catfishes (order Siluriformes), called armored catfishes due to the two rows of bony plates (or scutes) along the lengths of their bodies. It contains some of the most popular freshwater aquarium fish, such as many ...

. It originates in coastal drainages in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

from

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

to Santa Catarina,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Taxonomy

It was originally described as ''Callichthys barbatus'' by Jean René Constant Quoy & Joseph Paul Gaimard in 1824, from which it was transferred to genus

Corydoras ''Corydoras'' is a genus of freshwater catfish in the family Callichthyidae and subfamily Corydoradinae. The species usually have more restricted areas of endemism than other callichthyids, but the area of distribution of the entire genus almost ...

as ''Corydoras barbatus'', a name which by which it is still being referred to in the aquarium industry. The species was further transferred to genus ''

Scleromystax ''Scleromystax'' is a genus of fish in the family Callichthyidae endemic to small tributaries from several coastal river basins draining the southern and southeastern regions in Brazil. Most of the species of ''Scleromystax'' are highly sexually ...

'' in 2003.

Description

The fish will grow in length up to 9.8 centimetres (3.9 in). This species has pronounced

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...

. The dorsal and pectoral fins of males reach, or almost reach, the

caudal peduncle Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as see ...

, and well-developed

odontode Odontodes, or dermal teeth, are hard structures found on the external surfaces of animals or near internal openings. They consist of a soft pulp surrounded by dentine and covered by a mineralized substance such as enamel, a structure similar to th ...

s are inserted in fleshy tissue on a large area on the sides of the snout in fully grown males.

Habitat and ecology

The banded corydoras lives in a subtropical climate in water with a 6.0–8.0 pH, a water hardness of 2–25 dGH, and a temperature of to . It feeds on

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wo ...

s, benthic

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can ...

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s, and

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...

matter. It lays eggs in dense vegetation and adults do not guard the eggs. In captivity, as the sperm are released the female sinks to the bottom, resting on one of her pectoral fins while she starts fanning with the other pectoral fin. At this time, some eggs are released which fall into the pelvic fin basket and are apparently fertilized at that time.

In the aquarium

The banded corydoras is of commercial importance in the aquarium trade industry. Though peaceful, they get larger than most ''

'' and are therefore less suitable for small aquaria.

References

Corydoras Fish of South America Fish of Brazil Taxa named by Jean René Constant Quoy Taxa named by Joseph Paul Gaimard Fish described in 1824 {{callichthyidae-stub

Taxonomy

Description

Habitat and ecology

In the aquarium

See also

References