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his cory is like a Corydoras panda look-alike, the difference being is that C .oiapoquensis has the caudal peduncle spot on the base of the caudal fin, plus the tail has about 3 bands whereas C. panda has a clear tail. Apart from that they are very much alike, but I have found C. oiapoquensis to be a very shy fish, hence the quick and not so great photo here, as the fish appeared instead of waiting for it to come nearer, you can still see the main characteristics in the image.

Corydoras oiapoquensis - Lineage 9

Corydoras oiapoquensis occurs in the wild alongside a long-snouted look-a-like Corydoras condiscipulus. The Latin name of condiscipulus actually means schoolmate pertaining to the fact that they are together much of the time. You can see in the imge below the difference in the length of the snout, and of course this shows in the different lineages of both species. Corydoras oiapoquensis is lineage 9 wheras Corydoras condiscipulus is lineage 8 sub clade 4.

Corydoras condiscipulus

They were imported into the U.K., as far as I know, about 1996. The top picture is the male, I think, as the females don't get very gravid looking or heavy before the spawning cycle, so sometimes you can make a mistake identifying them. I was lucky and picked up 2 males and 1 female from a well known outlet in the north of England in March 98 and housed them in a 17" x 15" x 15" tank. Every time that I appeared in the fishhouse they would scatter about the tank and so I decided to cover the top of the tank to cut down on the light.

About 1 month later, with the tank being in darkness most of the time, I did not notice that they had spawned, with about 12 eggs laid on the Java Moss.  I had missed the first spawning as the parents must have ate the fry, so I took the eggs out to a separate container. The eggs are a kind of rusty/orange colour and about 2mm in size.

There are a few variations of this species where there is no banding in the tail and some that have no black blotch in the dorsal.

Below is a small photo gallery of the breeding of Corydoras oiapoquensis, just click on the thumbnail to get a larger image.

	Picture of egg 2mm with grains of sand attached to it.
	Three youngsters 10 weeks old.
	Youngster at 10 weeks old.

Remarks: Corydoras oiapoquensis 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 Hoplosopma (Agassiz, 1846).

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