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.