Wow, great researching!! I admit I didn't read everything (football game). How do they take gender differences into consideration? Seems like females might have larger scales or broken lateral line with size & egg carrying in some ways...but maybe not. I'll read more later...
Thanks for the color dots & scale (size) of, well, scales. You haven't done that for me in a while, usually circling with find the fry or eggs pics.
Can I just say I hate the half rotten specimens?
I'm not a fan of preserved specimens, but I understand the scientific value of having physical specimens on hand.
Got a better doodle showing what was pointed out to me regarding these being Moenkhausia forestii
Faint humeral spot
Green is the partial broken lateral line, stops halfway through the body. Red are 5 scales above it, and blue is the 4 underneath. What I thought was #5 on the lower end was the belly and didn't count
The study
It was someone else who pointed this out as I overlooked the lateral line being incomplete.
I could also take the frozen body of one of the skinny ones in the freezer that was killed in QT and look at it's dental pattern under microscope if I really wanted to. But I'm fairly certain forestii is correct in this case. (I bury my fish, but it's frozen outside, so have to wait until the ground thaws)
Meaning they're full grown pretty much right now (1.4"). On one hand, was hoping for a much larger fish (red eyes supposed to get 2.8-3"), on the other, I found something cool, AND comes from the Parana, like corydoras paleatus! Most temperature compatible of the possibilities essentially, so I really cannot complain.
Their colours are really coming through today. They're quite lovely.
The males have a darker red to them, even on the body there's a red tint to the top of their back.
And some bonus pics
Pleco looks like she came to the wrong meeting of fish and isn't sure she's supposed to be there lol
Baby cories
They're growing so fast now, they've made it to almost as large as the tetras now. Which I know is still small, but considering these have grown since eggs, it's always fun to watch them grow.