Taxonomy & naming
Corydoras mamore was described by the German aquarist-ichthyologist Gerhard Knaack in 2002, from specimens taken in the Río Ibaré, part of the Mamoré system in the Department of Beni, Bolivia. It belongs to the family Callichthyidae and the subfamily Corydoradinae, the South American armoured catfishes long lumped into the single huge genus Corydoras Lacépède, 1803.
That genus had become unmanageable, holding well over 170 species that molecular work showed were not a single natural lineage. In 2024 Dias, Tencatt and colleagues published a large revision splitting Corydoras into several genera (among them Brochis, Hoplisoma, Osteogaster and Gastrodermus), and under that scheme the Mamoré cory becomes Gastrodermus mamore — the combination now followed by FishBase and the specialist literature. The change is recent and the aquarium world still mostly says 'Corydoras mamore,' the name under which the C011 code circulates, so we keep that familiar heading while noting the current combination. The Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer, California Academy of Sciences) lists the name as valid in Gastrodermus.
Morphology
This is a small cory, reaching roughly 2 in in standard length, with the shortish, rounded snout typical of the lineage rather than the drawn-out 'long-nosed' profile of some relatives. As in all Corydoradinae the body is not scaled but armoured: two overlapping rows of bony plates (scutes) run down each flank and meet along the back, and the head is a hard bony helmet. Three pairs of barbels fringe the downturned mouth.
The ground colour is pale with a fine scatter of small dark spots over the flanks and a sometimes darker band or blotching along the side, the pattern that places it among the spotted corys of the Madeira system; exact markings vary between individuals and populations. The dorsal, pectoral and adipose fins each bear a stiff leading spine, the family's standard defence. Females grow somewhat larger and broader than males, most easily judged viewed from above; mature males tend to show more pointed fin tips. Detailed in-life colour notes are scarce, reflecting how seldom the species is collected or photographed.
Habitat
Corydoras mamore is known from the Mamoré drainage of the Bolivian Amazon — the type locality lies in the Río Ibaré near Moxos in the Beni lowlands, at around 525 ft elevation. The Mamoré is a major headwater of the Río Madeira, the great southern tributary of the Amazon, so the species belongs to the warm, lowland whitewater-and-clearwater country of northern Bolivia.
Like most corys it is a bottom fish of quieter water — the shallow margins and sandy floors of streams, channels and floodplain habitats, over soft substrate with leaf litter and submerged wood. FishBase records it as a facultative air-breather, gulping atmospheric air at the surface and absorbing oxygen through a vascularised hindgut, the adaptation that lets corys survive in warm, low-oxygen pools and shrinking dry-season water. Specific published water chemistry for the type locality is limited, but conditions across its range are those of warm, soft-to-moderate tropical lowland freshwater.
Feeding
No dedicated diet study exists for this species, but its anatomy and behaviour are those of the typical benthic cory: a bottom-foraging omnivore and detritivore. It works soft substrate with its barbels and downturned mouth, sifting out small invertebrates, insect larvae, micro-crustaceans, fallen organic matter and the film of detritus, expelling cleaned sand through the gill openings. In the aquarium congeners of its size and form readily take sinking tablets, granules and flake along with live or frozen bloodworm, Daphnia, grindal and white worm and brine shrimp; there is no reason to expect C. mamore to behave differently.
Mating
Spawning has not been documented for Corydoras mamore specifically, but corys share a distinctive, well-studied courtship that this species can be assumed to follow. They are egg-laying shoalers with no pair bond. When a female is ready she cleans a surface and the group becomes active; a male takes up the classic 'T-position', at right angles to the female's head, and she appears to take his milt into her mouth. Sperm is thought to pass rapidly through her gut to fertilise the few eggs she cradles in a basket formed by her pelvic fins, which she then presses onto the cleaned site. The sequence repeats, a few eggs at a time, until the clutch is laid.
Breeding
There is no published breeding report for Corydoras mamore; it is rarely kept and has not been a focus of hobbyist breeding. By analogy with related small Gastrodermus and Corydoras species, spawning would be expected to follow the family pattern — adhesive eggs scattered in small batches over leaves, wood, stones or the aquarium glass, often triggered by a cool, large water change mimicking the rains, with the eggs receiving no parental care (adults may eat them, so a breeder would separate eggs or parents). Eggs of related corys hatch in three to five days and the fry take microworm, baby brine shrimp and powdered foods. None of this is confirmed for C. mamore, and an honest profile flags it as inference rather than observation.
In the aquarium
Corydoras mamore is an uncommon import, reaching aquarists mainly as occasional wild C011 shipments rather than as a commercially bred staple, so first-hand husbandry notes are thin. As a small, peaceful shoaling cory its needs are the familiar ones: keep it in a group of six or more, never singly, in a tank with plenty of bottom area. Substrate matters most — soft sand or very smooth fine gravel, because corys feed by sifting and sharp or coarse grit erodes and infects their barbels, leaving the blunted faces that signal poor husbandry. Provide gentle current, good oxygenation, clean well-filtered water and regular changes, with planting and wood for cover and shaded resting spots. Temperatures in the warm tropical range (about 72–79 °F) and a broad, soft-to-moderate pH and hardness window suit it. It is utterly peaceful and belongs with calm community fish — tetras, small characins, rasboras and dwarf cichlids — never with anything large enough to bully it.
Conservation
The IUCN Red List has assessed Corydoras mamore as Data Deficient (assessment dated 2014): too little is known about its distribution, population and threats to judge its status. It is a narrowly recorded species of the Bolivian Mamoré, and like all freshwater fishes of the region it is exposed to the broad pressures degrading Amazonian headwaters — deforestation, agriculture, sedimentation, mining run-off and damming on the wider Madeira system. There is no evidence that the aquarium trade, in which it appears only sporadically, poses any significant pressure. As with many recently described, restricted-range corys, the honest position is that its conservation needs cannot be properly evaluated until its range and ecology are better documented.