This species is very common in the aquarium trade and is also referred to as ‘jewel’, ‘red minor’, ‘blood’, or ‘callistus’ tetra.

A number of selectively-bred ornamental strains have been developed, including ‘metallic’, ‘long-finned’, ‘balloon’ and ‘fairy-fin’.

Characiformes is among the most diverse orders of freshwa…

It exhibits slightly different behaviour to the majority of congeners in that it tends to swim in midwater and spends a large proportion of its time away from the substrate. Its morphology exhibits corresponding adaptations towards a pelagic existence with a relatively large eye, a more terminal mouth position, more strongly-forked caudal-fin, and more symmetrical body shape than most other Corydoras species.

The congener C. seussi, which is also native to the rio Mamoré, has a similar colour pattern but its snout is noticeably prolonged compared with that of C. gossei, plus there are some subtle differences in pigmentation. There is a third variant which has been referred to as ‘CW069’ in the aquarium hobby and appears to be somewhat intermediate, with a short, rounded snout as in C. gossei but a colour pattern more reminiscent of C. seussi.

The original type locality is ‘Rio Guaporé, Brazil’, supposedly in the vicinity of Pontes e Lacerda in Mato Grosso state. However, this was modified by Nijssen and Isbrücker (1980) to ‘Brazil-Goias, Rio Tocantins, road between Pedro-Afonso (08°59’S 48°12’W) and Itacajá (08°18’S 47°45’W)’. This is confusing since the distance between these two localities is well over 1000 km, although it appears that the former is correct as per our image of specimens with locality details.

Despite the ubiquity of its name in aquarium literature, confusion surrounds its true identity. Given it’s the only member of the genus occurring on the island, fish from Trinidad do presumably represent C. aeneus (see our image), but the classification of those from other localities appears far from certain.

Today the species is accepted to occur throughout much of South America, and indeed similarly-patterned fish do occur across a large portion of the continent. Some of these, such as the gree…

This species is also referred to as ‘velvet cichlid’, ‘red oscar’, ‘tiger oscar’, or ‘marble cichlid’.

It is a popular aquarium fish although its adult size and typical life-span of 10-20 years must be taken into account before purchase. Numerous ornamental strains are now available, and while care is more-or-less identical for all of them a degree of additional care must be taken with the ‘long-finned’ variety which is a little less competitive than other forms.

L. taeniata is the largest-growing and second most widely-distributed member of the genus although it’s a rarely-seen in the aquarium trade.

It can be distinguished from all congeners since it uniquely possesses 5 lateral scale rows between the lateral line and dorsal-fin origin (vs. 4 or 6–8 in the remaining species).

Abramites spp. are separated from other anostomids primarily on the basis of their relatively deeper bodies and presence of a prominent, post-pelvic median keel, a feature unique to the genus.

At time of writing A. eques is the only other species recognised and is native to the Río Magdalena drainage in western Colombia.

It can be distinguished by possession of 13-14 bra…

This species is also referred to as ‘black-anded leporinus’, ‘striped leporinus’ and ‘eight-banded leporinus’.

Young specimens are often traded for aquaria without warning as to their potential size and requirements, and as a result it’s fairly ubiquitous in public aquarium displays.