Corydoras Aeneus?

[hobby5]

shultzei is a synonym of aeneus

 

[DoubleDutch]

shultzei is a synonym of aeneus

I know there is some discussion about schultzei being a seperate species.

Planet Catfish does label them as such and the definitely are different to the "common" aeneus. I am keeping three different types of aeneus btw.
The green ones totally don't look like my brown ones (size, shape, behaviour, etc). So you might see them as a different "type" of aeneus or just call them schultzei as PC does. The black schultzei is sometimes called black aeneus. To me that's not correct but might have the same background as your remark. They are all in the aeneus-group for sure (and crossbreed).
Gold, red and green lasers are aeneus as well.

As said this one looks differently shaped to schultzei.

 

[Byron]

One issue I have with PC is that they are sometimes quick to follow "new" or proposed taxonomy when the scientific community has not (yet anyway).  Using Hemiloricaria for the Rineloricaria species such as R. parva is one such example.  And here with C. "schultzei" we have another.
 
Holly (1940) described a species as C. schultzei but Nijssen & Isbrucker (1980) considered this species synonymous with C. aeneus, and all accepted studies until recently have agreed (Isbrucker, 2001; Reis, 2003; Ferraris, 2007, and Eschmeyer in the CAS ichthyological database, 2016).  However, having said that, it is true as PC and others have remarked that the natural range of "C. aeneus" is so vast as to make it very likely that subspecies or distinct species may be involved.  I am not aware of any recent phylogenetic analysis that unequivocally sorts this out, but Alexandrou & Taylor (2011) in their review of the Corydoradinae do include C. schultzei and C. venezuelanus as being in Lineage 7 with C. aeneus and a few others, and noting that the C. aeneus from Suriname and Guyana should be separate from the Peruvian species where the "laser" species are found.  The authors are however quick to point out that their proposal is not to be taken as a formal taxonomic revision of this polyphyletic genus that will presumably end up separed into nine genera.
 
Byron.

 

[DoubleDutch]

One issue I have with PC is that they are sometimes quick to follow "new" or proposed taxonomy when the scientific community has not (yet anyway).  Using Hemiloricaria for the Rineloricaria species such as R. parva is one such example.  And here with C. "schultzei" we have another.
 
Holly (1940) described a species as C. schultzei but Nijssen & Isbrucker (1980) considered this species synonymous with C. aeneus, and all accepted studies until recently have agreed (Isbrucker, 2001; Reis, 2003; Ferraris, 2007, and Eschmeyer in the CAS ichthyological database, 2016).  However, having said that, it is true as PC and others have remarked that the natural range of "C. aeneus" is so vast as to make it very likely that subspecies or distinct species may be involved.  I am not aware of any recent phylogenetic analysis that unequivocally sorts this out, but Alexandrou & Taylor (2011) in their review of the Corydoradinae do include C. schultzei and C. venezuelanus as being in Lineage 7 with C. aeneus and a few others, and noting that the C. aeneus from Suriname and Guyana should be separate from the Peruvian species where the "laser" species are found.  The authors are however quick to point out that their proposal is not to be taken as a formal taxonomic revision of this polyphyletic genus that will presumably end up separed into nine genera.
 
Byron.

Conclusion : we can call them all aeneus, though very different shaped / colored / etc

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Are the C. aeneus and the C. shultzei able to interbreed?  If they cannot then they are indeed separate species.  If they can.... then there's a lot of grey still.

 

[DoubleDutch]

Are the C. aeneus and the C. shultzei able to interbreed?  If they cannot then they are indeed separate species.  If they can.... then there's a lot of grey still.

They can / will.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

 

Are the C. aeneus and the C. shultzei able to interbreed?  If they cannot then they are indeed separate species.  If they can.... then there's a lot of grey still.

They can / will.
 

 
Then it shall remain grey.  

 

[Akasha72]

it sounds like C. aeneus is as bad at interbreeding as C. panda 

 The only difference I can see is when C. panda interbreeds with C. similis everyone goes off on one and starts saying they must not enter the trade but when C. aeneus interbreeds with C. shultzei everyone say's 'huzzah, what a lovely looking fish' and is instantly happy to pay what ever the given price for what is essentially a hybrid
 
Smacks of hypocracy to my mind ... sorry but I just had to make the point. Not wishing to start a ruck ... just saying ... 

 

[DoubleDutch]

it sounds like C. aeneus is as bad at interbreeding as C. panda 

 The only difference I can see is when C. panda interbreeds with C. similis everyone goes off on one and starts saying they must not enter the trade but when C. aeneus interbreeds with C. shultzei everyone say's 'huzzah, what a lovely looking fish' and is instantly happy to pay what ever the given price for what is essentially a hybrid
 
Smacks of hypocracy to my mind ... sorry but I just had to make the point. Not wishing to start a ruck ... just saying ... 

Huh ? Wo is saying "huzzah". Think you're overreacting.
Aeneus isn't an interbreeder like C.panda. They will mate with all fish in the aeneusgroup though cause they are closely related.
Technically if they are "aeneus" it isn't interbreeding but just breeding. Nevertheless I keep my different aeneus-types seperated and prevent those lines to mix up.

No hypocracy or something alike.

 

[Akasha72]

One of those situations when I couldn't put across my point without sounding like I'm starting an arguement .... it was meant to be a bit of a mildly sarcastic, pulling your leg, off the cuff comment. Difficult to get the way I meant it when not done in person

 

[DoubleDutch]

That would mean quite a swim this evening to meet in person hahaha. Btw keeping 3 Panda-males with aeneus. Never saw eggs of those so even doubt these interbreed.
If there are eggs I won't let them hatch.

 

[Akasha72]

my male panda's are in with female melini, and female peppered .... no interbreeding there but then I have melini males and peppered males too .... it would seem that if there are enough of both sexes they keep the breeding in their own group.
 
I think the point I'm trying to make is ... while interbreeding shouldn't be encouraged if it happens and the result is a beautiful fish where's the problem ... 
 
If mother nature never meant for them to interbreed she would have made it impossible 

 
Anyway, shutting up now cos I know this is a touchy subject and my view doesn't match those of others

 

[eaglesaquarium]

it sounds like C. aeneus is as bad at interbreeding as C. panda 

 The only difference I can see is when C. panda interbreeds with C. similis everyone goes off on one and starts saying they must not enter the trade but when C. aeneus interbreeds with C. shultzei everyone say's 'huzzah, what a lovely looking fish' and is instantly happy to pay what ever the given price for what is essentially a hybrid
 
Smacks of hypocracy to my mind ... sorry but I just had to make the point. Not wishing to start a ruck ... just saying ... 

 
I think you were missing the point in my question.  The point is that the inability to be able to breed would eliminate the issue for the species classification.  
 
On the other hand, different 'species' such as platies and swordtails interbreed readily, so the ABILITY to breed doesn't mean anything... the INABILITY to breed does.

 

[Byron]

Conclusion : we can call them all aeneus, though very different shaped / colored / etc
 

 
The question marks I take it to mean you'd like my thinking, which is absolutely fair and logical, and I certainly don't mind.  
 
Taxonomically, the fish are Corydoras aeneus, until such time as an ichthyologist carries out an analysis of the fish and determines they are the same species, subspecies, or different species, anatomically and obviously phylogenetically, and then assuming the determination is accepted.  Though it is certainly taxonomically accurate to identify them with non-scientific names, such as Corydoras aeneus "laser" or C. aeneus "black" or whatever.  But assigning a new scientific name when no ichthyologist to date has proposed one as a formal revision, is incorrect and misleading.
 
Turning to a more general discussion, this external difference within a "species" is not all that uncommon in South American fish.  Among the characins, there are many examples.
 
There are two clearly-distinct forms of the Marble Hatchetfish, Carnegiella strigata, which at various times were considered five different species, until Gery (1977) proposed were subspecies (he termed them C. strigata strigata and C. strigata fasciata) but Weitzman & Palmer (in Reis, 2003) held as one species, and this is so far the accepted taxonomy.  The black-wing hatchetfish, Carnegiella marthae, has a wide distribution and recent phylogenetic work has clearlyidentified three distinct lineages, so this may result in three distinct species after further work.
 
The cardinal tetra Paracheirodon axelrodi has two very different forms, the northern "Columbian" and the "Brazilian," which Gery surmised could be subspecies, but the most recent work by Zarske left them as one species, or so I am informed; the study is in German and my German is no where near adequate to read scientific papers.  Several species of pencilfish in the genus Nannostomus have variant forms according to geographic origin, and these are so far still viewed as single species, though again further study may change this.  The species Hyphessobrycon eques is known to have variants, and given its large distribution these may also end up being new species.
 
Corydoras to date has some 161 described species and several non-described "C" numbered fish.  It seems probable that this genus will be separated into nine genera, as the species are known to be descended from nine different ancestors, and only species descended from the same ancestor are classified in the same genus.  This is going to take a lot of study to sort out.  PC has retained Brochis as a distinct genus which is now inaccurate, as it has been synonymised with Corydoras (Britto, 2003).
 
Byron.

 

[Akasha72]

what we need is for someone to clarify clearly which types of cory will, and can, interbreed and what with. If there was a clear - don't keep 'this kind' of cory with 'this kind' of cory because they can interbreed then it would make our lives much easier.
 
I've just been at my lfs to take my baby panda's for them to sell on. In one large tank they had many different types of young cories - the were the black cories (labelled as venuzwalens but more likely black shultzei's) there were bronze, there was albino's, panda's, and two types of spotted cories, one with a black dorsal tip, one without. 
Now I dithered, I very nearly brought home some of the spotted one's with the black tipped dorsal but because I don't know what they were and because I have many types of cory already, one type being a type that will interbreed with anything (or so it would seem), I was too scared to buy in case I start a whole new type of hybrid.
 
It's starting to frustrate me. I love my panda's but I'm beginning to wish I'd never got them