SCOTCAT.COM  

his month of December 2008 is another landmark here at ScotCat as we reach the milestone of the 150th factsheet over an 11 year period of your favoutite catfish website. So we have invited along Catfish Study Group secretary, Adrian Taylor, who also hosts his own website on his first love, the hillstream catfishes of Asia. Adrian has also been prolific in breeding Corydoras of many types, so I will hand you over to him to promote another special member of this family.

Hoplisoma simile

These medium sized Corydoras/Hoplisoma catfish regularly appear in our stores every other year or so, and it is often the case with them that they only show their true colours after settling in to our tanks. Although their finage posses little in the way of colour or markings, the body colour can truly said to be breathtaking when they are in spawning condition. During this time the spots that adorn the first two thirds of the body get more pronounced and the area’s around the cheeks and gills take on a golden hue, the blue blotch that is present from just posterior of the dorsal fin to the caudal peduncle becomes even darker and the body scutes in this area take on a bright turquoise luster.

The sexes are easy to determine as the females are generally larger than the males, have larger ventral fins and the pectoral fins are more deeply convexed posteriorly. Hoplisoma simile has been spawned in the aquarium and tend to comply to the usual techniques in breeding most of the Corydoradinae group of catfishes.

The image below shows an albino variety of Hoplisoma simile.

Hoplisoma simile - albino

These cory-cats have proved not to be problematic in the way they are looked after, which makes them a must have species for any small to medium sized community tank. A substrate of sand or small rounded gravel interspersed with clumps of plants; like Amazon sword and containing areas of rock and/or bogwood would make a ideal bio type. Like wise feeding Hoplisoma simile is not a problem as they will readily consume commercial foods such as flake, granular and tablet foods and frozen foods such as bloodworms and daphnia, like all fish they benefit from regular feedings of live foods such as Daphnia, Cyclops, Grindal worms and bloodworms.

Remarks: Corydoras similis is placed in Lineage 9, the "short-snouted" species with the designated type species: C. punctatus. A revision in the future would constitute the resurrection of the genus name Hoplisoma (Agassiz, 1846). As of the latest revision (Dias et al 2024) Corydoras simils has now been placed in Lineage 9 and has the new genus name of Hoplisoma and also a change to the specific name to simile.

False Blotch Tail Cory

Corydoras similis

Corydoradinae

South America: Brazil, Madeira river system and the district of Rondonia.

Male: 5.5cm (2¼ins) Female: 6.0cm (2½ins)

22-26°C (71-79°F)

Dorsal fin 8 rays and a strong spine, Adipose fin small. Pectoral fins 5 rays and a strong spine. Ventral fins 5 rays. Anal fin 5 rays. Caudal fin 14 rays. Head large, snout rounded, eyes large. Barbels 3 pairs; one pair maxillary barbels that reach as far back as the eye, two pairs of madibulary barbels outer mandibulary barbel not quite reaching the eye, with the inner madibulary barbel being somewhat smaller.

Body base colour cream, head profusely covered in irregular small brown spots, these spots continue along the body from the dorsal fin in even rows above the lateral line diminishing in size the nearer they get to the caudal peduncle. The area of the body beneath the lateral line is coloured a creamy tan. There is a blue coloured blotch which begins posteriorly to the dorsal fin base, terminating at the caudal peduncle; this blue blotch darkens in colour the closer to the caudal peduncle it becomes. The ventral surface is white to cream in colour. The fins being hyaline.

This is akin to most of this genus, very peaceful, and would be best housed with small to medium tankmates such as Tetras, Rasboras and Danios or in a species tank for breeding purposes.

Hoplisoma simile has been spawned in the aquarium and tend to comply to the usual techniques in breeding most of the Corydoradinae group of catfishes, which you can find information on, in the breeding articles section of the website.

Feeding Hoplisoma simile is not a problem as they will readily consume commercial foods such as flake, granular and tablet foods and frozen foods such as bloodworms and daphnia, like all fish they benefit from regular feedings of live foods such as Daphnia, Cyclops, Grindal worms and bloodworms.

similis: Named for its similarity to Corydoras ourastigma.

Alexandrou, Markos & Taylor, Martin. (2011). Evolution, ecology and taxonomy of the Corydoradinae revisited.
Angelica C Dias, Luiz F C Tencatt, Fabio F Roxo, Gabriel de Souza da Costa Silva, Sérgio A Santos, Marcelo R Britto, Martin I Taylor, Claudio Oliveira, Phylogenomic analyses in the complex Neotropical subfamily Corydoradinae (Siluriformes: Callichthyidae) with a new classification based on morphological and molecular data, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2024;, zlae053.
Fuller, I.A.M. & Evers, H-G: 2005 Identifying Corydoradinae Catfish Ian Fuller Enterprises. 384 p
Ian A. M. Fuller & Hans-Georg Evers (2011). Identifying Corydoradinae Catfish Supplement 1. Ian Fuller Enterprises.

Photo Credits

© Adrian Taylor