Taxonomy & naming
Corydoras desana was described by Flávio Lima and Ivan Sazima in 2017 in the journal aqua (International Journal of Ichthyology), from the Igarapé Castanha, a tributary of the rio Tiquié near the village of Santa Rosa, São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Amazonas, Brazil — the type locality, at roughly 0°05'N, 69°41'W in the upper Rio Negro system. It had circulated among cory keepers under the collection code CW011 before it was formally named. The epithet honours the Desana, an ethnic group of the Tiquié basin closely related to the neighbouring Tukano people — a deliberate double meaning, since the new fish is a mimic of Corydoras tukano in exactly the way the two peoples are linked.
The species belongs to a basal clade of long-snouted Corydoras. In the 2024 phylogenomic revision by Dias, Tencatt and colleagues (Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, zlae053), which split the oversized genus Corydoras into several lineages, Corydoras desana falls in Lineage 1 — the group that retains the name Corydoras in the strict sense, anchored on the type species Corydoras geoffroy. The Catalog of Fishes records its current status as a valid Corydoras desana, so here the heading and the working genus coincide.
Morphology
Corydoras desana is a long-snouted cory, reaching about 2.5 in standard length in males and 2.5 in in females — a medium-sized member of the genus with the elongated, slightly down-curved snout characteristic of the long-nosed lineages. The body wears the usual Corydoras armour of two overlapping rows of bony plates, a hard helmeted head, three pairs of barbels around the downturned mouth, and stiff spines leading the dorsal and pectoral fins.
Its patterning is the heart of the story: it closely resembles the shorter-snouted Corydoras tukano with which it lives, the two forming a mimic pair. The colour is built on a pale ground broken by dark markings; in the long-snouted desana the pattern echoes the short-snouted co-mimic closely enough that they were confused before description. Sexual differences follow the genus norm — females are larger, broader and higher-bodied than males, most visible from above.
Habitat
The Desana cory is known only from the Igarapé Castanha and the wider rio Tiquié, a tributary of the upper Rio Negro in north-western Brazil — a true blackwater system. These are tea-coloured, strongly acidic, very soft and nutrient-poor waters, stained by tannins from decomposing leaf litter in the surrounding forest.
It lives over soft substrates among leaf litter and submerged wood in the quieter water, where it forages with its long snout. Strikingly, it occurs syntopically with its co-mimic Corydoras tukano, the two species sharing the same stretches of stream, with tukano much the more abundant of the pair. As with all corys it is a facultative air-breather, surfacing to gulp air it absorbs through a vascularised hindgut — an asset in the warm, oxygen-poor blackwater shallows it inhabits. Aquarium guidance for the species centres on warm water around 73–79 °F and a soft, acidic-to-neutral chemistry (about pH 6.0–7.2).
Feeding
Like other long-snouted corys, Corydoras desana is a benthic forager that uses its elongated snout to probe deeper into soft sand and leaf litter than the short-snouted species can, tasting out small invertebrates, worms, insect larvae and detritus. That probing feeding style is part of why the long-nosed corys do well over fine, deep, soft substrates. In the aquarium it readily takes a mixed diet of sinking granular and tablet foods and good-quality flake, supplemented with frozen and live items such as bloodworm. As with all corys it should be offered a varied, properly sinking diet rather than left to scavenge leftovers.
Mating
No spawning of Corydoras desana has been formally recorded, but it is expected to follow the standard Corydoras pattern. These are egg-laying shoalers without a pair bond. A ready female cleans a site and the group grows active; a male takes the 'T-position', set at right angles to her head, and she is thought to take his milt, which passes quickly through her gut to fertilise the few eggs she carries in a basket of clasped pelvic fins. She presses those eggs onto a chosen surface and the process repeats a few eggs at a time. Whether the species' mimicry of Corydoras tukano carries into any aspect of its breeding behaviour is unknown.
Breeding
There is no published breeding report for Corydoras desana, which is an uncommon, specialist import rather than a commercially bred fish. By analogy with its relatives, spawning would be expected to follow a cool, large water change mimicking the rainy season, in a group with more males than females, and would likely be helped by the soft, acidic blackwater conditions of its home range. The adhesive eggs would be laid in small batches across firm surfaces and given no parental care — corys of this lineage eat their own eggs — so a breeder would separate eggs from parents. Eggs of comparable corys hatch in roughly three to five days, after which the fry take microworm, baby brine shrimp and powdered foods. This should be read as informed expectation, not a record for the species itself.
In the aquarium
Corydoras desana is a peaceful, shoaling fish and, like all corys, must be kept in a group of six or more rather than alone. Substrate is the single most important consideration, and doubly so for a long-snouted species: provide soft sand so the fish can bury its snout to feed, because sharp or coarse gravel wears down and infects the barbels and snout and quickly ruins a long-nosed cory's face. Arrange driftwood, leaf litter and planting around an open feeding area in a well-shaded tank.
Given its upper-Rio-Negro origins it is best kept warm, soft and acidic — roughly 73–79 °F, well filtered and well oxygenated, with regular partial changes; tannin-stained botanical or blackwater setups suit it. It is well suited to a calm South American community of tetras, pencilfish and dwarf cichlids and should never be kept with anything large enough to bully it. The standard cory cautions apply: net spines snag (a cup is safer), and a badly stressed cory can release a skin toxin lethal in the small volume of a transport bag, so move them with care. This is a sought-after collector's cory rather than a shop staple.
Conservation
Corydoras desana has not been assessed by the IUCN Red List and carries no formal conservation status. It is currently known only from the Igarapé Castanha and the rio Tiquié, which makes it, on present knowledge, a very narrowly distributed species — and narrow-range blackwater endemics are inherently more vulnerable to localised disturbance than widespread corys. That said, the upper Rio Negro remains among the better-preserved parts of Amazonia, and no specific threat to the species has been documented. As with many recently described Negro-basin corys, the priority is simply better data: its real range may prove wider than the single tributary from which it is so far known, or it may be a genuine micro-endemic deserving attention in its own right.