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I was at Petsmart yesterday and they had spotted cories. What exactly is a spotted cory? When I look through the profiles, they look like the julii or the trilineatus. What's the difference? There were actually two different varieties in the tank. One had more of a line down the side, the dorsal fin was darker too. I bought three, thought they looked really cute!

"Constant vigilance!"
Mad-Eye Moody

There are many cories which are known by that name, the most common ones are Corydoras trilineatus and C. paleatus. The ones you saw were C. trilineatus, they are fairly common fish. Actually, they are often mislabeled as C. julii, though these are very rare in the hobby.

The differences between the two are subtle. C. julii comes from a different area than C. trilineatus, and the julii cories are rarely imported. Also, julii cories have a pattern of small spots on their heads, while most trilineatus have squiggly (for lack of a better word) lines. Some C. trilineatus actually have the small spots though, which really makes these fish hard to tell apart. The best way to figure out what you have is to assume that they are trilineatus. The only place that regularly gets julii cories is Germany, thanks to a single importer.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Books, thanks so much, that was a question I have had for quite sometime myself, and would actually like to get some to add to the 125yes, i admit it i'm addicted to these little guys; corries in general I actually asked the PetSmart head Fish person here, Karen what kind they are and she looked on the card, duh, spotted C, checked her inventory, where she got Spotted Corydora, and is trying to ask about herself...If I ever find out I'll let someone know...but Books idea sounds reasonable to me...heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Spotted Corys? Goodness, there must be at least 20-odd species of those.

A quick trawl through the Corycats site yields the following:

agassizii
ambiacus
araguaiensis
armatus
atropersonatus
breei
cochui (to a certain extent)
copei (which looks a lot like julii/trilineatus)
cruziensis
difluviatilis
diphyes
evelynae
flaveolus
garbei
geryi
gomesi
haraldschultzi
incolicana
isbruckeri
julii
lamberti
leopardus
leucomelas
loretoensis
loxozonus
maculifer
melanistius
melanistius brevirostris
multimaculatus
noelkempffei
ornatus
orphnopterus
osteocarus
paucerna
polystictus
punctatus
reticulatus
robineae
robustus
schwartzi
sipalwini
sodalis
spectabilis
steindachneri
sterbai
surinamensis
sychri
trilineatus
xinguensis

I make that 49 species of spotted Cory to choose from. Quite a diverse range by any standards!

This doesn't include undescribed C-numbers. Add those to the list and you could have as many as 60 species to choose from. Wow.


Last edited by Calilasseia at 30-Mar-2005 16:37

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

WOWZA! Guess I'll just call em spotted!

"Constant vigilance!"
Mad-Eye Moody

When the PetsMarts around me call cories spotted, I think they refer to schwarzi. They usually label trilineatus as julii, so I doubt what you are seeing is either.

I've never actually seen C. schwartzi at a PetSmart, but that could well be what they are talking about. It is not paleatus, because they are labeled as "Peppered cories". It could either be schwartzi or trilineatus. The originator of this thread is the only one who knows for sure.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Are you sure? All I know is that they're spotted! Actually, when I look at pictures, they are not schwartzi. Don't have that spot on their heads. They look like trilineatus. Of course since there were two different types, I'm not sure what the others were. I only got one type. When I go back to get more I'll look and see if they still have both.

"Constant vigilance!"
Mad-Eye Moody