Taxonomy & naming
The species was described by the German aquarist and ichthyologist Joachim Knaack in 2004, in the same paper that introduced six new Corydoras species (Zoologische Abhandlungen, Staatliches Museum für Tierkunde Dresden). The type material came from Bolivia, in the lowlands of the upper Guaporé (Iténez) drainage. It belongs to the family Callichthyidae, subfamily Corydoradinae. The specific name honours Professor Noel Kempff Mercado (1924–1986), a Bolivian biologist, ornithologist and conservationist after whom a major Bolivian national park is also named.
In the 2024 phylogenomic revision of the Corydoradinae by Dias, Tencatt and colleagues, this species was placed in the genus Brochis — the lineage of larger, many-rayed corys long recognised by their higher dorsal-fin ray count — so its current valid combination is Brochis noelkempffi, the name now used by FishBase and the Catalog of Fishes. Consistent with that placement, the fish has eight dorsal soft rays, more than the typical six to seven of true Corydoras. Because the change is recent and the trade still says 'Corydoras noelkempffi,' we keep that as the hobby-familiar heading while noting the current valid name.
Morphology
This is a small to medium cory, reaching about 2 in standard length. Its fin formula reflects its placement in Brochis: a single dorsal spine followed by eight soft rays — a higher count than the six or seven of true Corydoras — with the anal fin carrying one spine and five soft rays. As in all corys the body is clad in two rows of overlapping bony scutes and the head is a hard helmet, with sensory barbels around the downturned mouth. The overall body shape is described as fusiform and normal for the subfamily.
Detailed colour notes for the species are limited, and FishBase carries no photograph, using instead a generic callichthyid illustration. As in the genus generally, the dorsal, pectoral and adipose fins each bear a stiff, mildly venomous spine.
Habitat
Corydoras noelkempffi is known only from Bolivia, in the lowland waters of the upper Guaporé (Iténez) drainage of the Amazon basin. These are warm tropical lowland streams and rivers; specific water-chemistry measurements for the species have not been published, but its relatives in the region occupy soft to moderately hard, near-neutral waters at temperatures in the low-to-mid-20s Celsius. As a bottom-dwelling cory it favours quieter reaches over soft substrate.
Like other callichthyids it is a facultative air-breather, rising to gulp atmospheric air and absorbing oxygen through its vascularised hindgut — useful in the warm, seasonally oxygen-poor backwaters of the Bolivian lowlands. Field ecology for the species is essentially undocumented; what little is known comes from the original description and from the occasional collector or aquarist handling wild stock.
Feeding
No diet study specific to C. noelkempffi has been published, but its mouth, barbels and body plan are those of a typical benthic foraging cory. Like its relatives it can be expected to work the bottom, sifting sand and leaf litter to taste out small invertebrates, insect larvae, worms and organic detritus. In the aquarium, fish of this type readily take sinking pellets and tablets, good-quality flake, and frozen or live foods such as bloodworm and brine shrimp; as always, corys should be fed deliberately rather than left to scavenge.
Mating
Reproduction in C. noelkempffi has not been documented, and its courtship is presumed to follow the pattern shared across the subfamily. Corydoras and their relatives, including Brochis, are egg-laying shoalers with no pair bond and the stereotyped 'T-position' spawning, in which a receptive female cleans a site, a male positions himself at right angles to her head, and she carries a few adhesive eggs clasped in a basket of her pelvic fins to press onto the chosen surface, repeating until a clutch is laid. Whether and how this proceeds in C. noelkempffi is unrecorded.
Breeding
There are no established captive-breeding accounts for this species; it is a rare import and is not bred commercially. By analogy with the subfamily, any clutch would consist of adhesive eggs deposited on firm surfaces and given no parental care — adults may eat the eggs, so a breeder would remove either the eggs or the parents and rear the fry on small foods such as microworm and baby brine shrimp once the yolk sac is absorbed. Its scarcity and the lack of published husbandry mean dedicated breeding of the species is effectively undescribed.
In the aquarium
Rarely available, C. noelkempffi is realistically a fish for the specialist who encounters wild Bolivian imports, and its care follows the standard cory template. It is a shoaling species and should be kept in a group of six or more over soft sand, which lets it feed naturally and spares its barbels the abrasion that coarse or sharp gravel causes. Warm but not hot water (broadly in the low-to-mid-20s Celsius), clean and well-oxygenated with gentle to moderate flow and regular changes, suits its lowland-stream origins.
It is a peaceful fish and belongs with calm community tankmates such as tetras, pencilfish and dwarf cichlids, never with species large enough to bully it. Because so little husbandry has been published, a keeper should err toward stable, mature water quality and careful observation. The usual cory cautions apply — the fin spines snag in nets, so a cup is safer, and a badly stressed fish can release a skin toxin that may be dangerous in the small volume of a transport bag.
Conservation
Corydoras noelkempffi (as Brochis noelkempffi) is assessed by the IUCN as Data Deficient (assessed 2014): too little is known of its distribution, population and trends to evaluate its risk of extinction. It appears to be narrowly distributed within the upper Guaporé (Iténez) drainage of Bolivia and is taken only in small numbers for the aquarium trade. As with other narrowly known Bolivian lowland fishes, regional pressures such as deforestation, agriculture and changes to river flow could affect its habitat, but its true status cannot be judged until basic survey data are collected — the gap the Data Deficient listing records.