
question I am often asked is "what
age does does a Corydoras live to" this set me thinking
of the origins of our little whiskered friends and the discovery
that they lived on our earth (well in the water anyway!) at
least 50-60 million years ago.

The last of the dinosaurs
disappeared from the earth around 65 million years ago so our
fossil friend Corydoras revelatus lived in the Tertiary
period just after this, alongside the hairy mammal. It was discovered
in Argentina in Sunchal, Juyuy province, by a well known entomologist,
Professor T.D.A.Cockerell of the University of Colorado, Boulder,
in 1925. He was actually searching along with his wife for fossil
insects at the time before he came across our plated friend.
The green Tertiary rock measured 32mm and the imprint 27mm and
it bears the outline of a Corydoras (Sands,D. 1983) What
was noticed was that a flaw in the rock suggested that the dorsal
spine was longer (Isbrücker) and the problem of the one
dimensional shape of the fossil made it the subject of a new
species, Corydoras revelatus Cockerell, 1925. It is now
housed in the British Natural History Museum, London.