From Colombia we received an import of the striped wolf tetra, Hoplerythrinus unitaeniatus. The systematics of these almost over the entire South America spread fish is poorly understood. Only the one species, H. unitaeniatus, is recognized commonly, but there are a lot of synonyms, among them the (without justification) occasionally recognized species H. cinereus (Trinidad and Tobago) and H. gronovii (French Guyana). The Orinoco colour variant that we have just imported is often referred to on the Internet as H. cinereus or “Golden Trahira”.
With a final size of 20-25 cm, H. unitaeniatus remains relatively handy for a Trahira. They are very aggressive and among each other incompatible predatory fish (don’t be deceived by the photos, this is only possible so peacefully for a short time), which, like all Trahiras or wolf tetras have an auxiliary respiration and must regularly draw air at the water surface. Compared to females, males have darker orange fins and a larger anal fin.
For our customers: the animals have code 258504 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesalers.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
