Gastrodermus


Gastrodermus is a genus of freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the subfamily Corydoradinae, the corys, of the family Callichthyidae, the armoured catfishes. The catfishes in this genus are found in South America.

Taxonomy

Gastrodermus was first proposed as a genus in 1878 by the American paleontologist and biologist Edward Drinker Cope with Corydoras elegans, a species described in 1872 by Franz Steindachner from the Amazon of Brazil, designated as its type species by William Alonzo Gosline III in 1940. For a long period this taxon was regarded as a synonym of Corydoras but it was resurrected as a valid genus by a phylogenomic analysis published in 2025. This genus is classified in the subfamily Corydoradinae of the armoured catfish family Callichtyidae in the suborder Loricarioidei in the catfish order Siluriformes.

Etymology

Gastrodermus combines gaster, meaning "belly", with derma, which means "skin". These fishes do not have the coracoid bones enclosing the ventral region, unlike most of their former congeners in Corydoras.

Species

Gastrodermus contains the following valid species: