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This is one of the first Corydoras species, along with Osteogaster aenea (formerly Corydoras aeneus) to be bred in the aquarium and was the mainstay of the catfish side of the hobby in the early years when the hobby of fishkeeping took off with the arrival of easier air travel importation in the late fifties, early sixties. It was in fact first bred in Paris, France, by Pière Carbonier way back in 1878. There is another claim to fame for this Corydoras in that it was first discovered by Charles Darwin on his famous five year voyage on the Beagle in 1831-36. There is also a C. paleatus albino form that is now being bred in the hobby. Lineage: Placed in Lineage 6 which has always been classified as Corydoras (Lacépède, 1803) so a new genus would need to be described and a new type species when a new revision is carried out. As of the latest revision (Dias et al 2024) Corydoras paleatus has now been placed in Lineage 9 and has the new genus name of Hoplisoma and a change to the specific name to paleatum. Diet: A good quality flake food and tablet food for adults with sparodic feedings of frozen or live food will keep your Corydoras/Hoplisoma in good health. See Factsheet for more information. Remarks: This species is still found on some online sources as Corydoras paleatus.

Peppered Corydoras

Callichthys paleatus, Corydoras maculatus, Corydoras marmoratos, Corydoras punctatus var. argentina, Corydoras microcephalus (?).

Callichthyidae

South America: Argentina, Rivers and streams around Buenos Aires. Uruguay, Streams around Montevideo. Type Locality: Laguna del Potrero, Maldonado, Uruguay.

Males: 6.5cm ( 2½ins) Female: 7.5cm (3ins)

22-26°C (71-79°F)

6.0-7.2.

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.
ScotCat Factsheet no. 89. Nov. 2003.