The Pastaza corydoras (''Corydoras pastazensis'') is a
tropical
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...
freshwater
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include non-salty mi ...
fish
A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...
belonging to the Corydoradinae sub-family 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 inland waters in
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
, and is found in the
Pastaza River
The Pastaza River (, formerly known as the SumataraEnock, Charles Reginald (1914) ''Ecuador: its ancient and modern history, topography and natural resources, industries and social development'' Charles Scribner's sons, New Yorkpages 177–178 ) ...
basin in
Ecuador
Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
. It is named for the river in which it is found.
The fish will grow in length up to . It lives in a
tropical
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...
climate in water with a 6.0 – 8.0
pH, a water hardness of 2 – 25
dGH, and a temperature range of 22 – 26
°C
The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius temperature scale "Celsius temperature scale, also called centigrade temperature scale, scale based on 0 ° for the melting point of water and 100 ° for the boiling point ...
(72 – 79
°F
The Fahrenheit scale () is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the German-Polish physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accounts of how he original ...
). It feeds on
worm
Worms are many different distantly related bilateria, bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limb (anatomy), limbs, and usually no eyes.
Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine ...
s,
benthic
The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "the depths". ...
crustacean
Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...
s,
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...
s, and
plant
Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...
matter. It lays eggs in dense vegetation and adults do not guard the eggs.
The Pastaza corydoras is of commercial importance in the aquarium trade industry.
See also
*
List of freshwater aquarium fish species
A vast number of freshwater species have successfully adapted to live in aquariums. This list gives some examples of the most common species found in home aquariums.
Siluriformes, Catfish
Characiformes, Characoids
Cichl ...
References
*
External links
Corydoras
Freshwater fish of Ecuador
Fishkeeping
Taxa named by Stanley Howard Weitzman
Fish described in 1963
{{callichthyidae-stub