We isolated and characterized 10 microsatellite loci in the armored catfish (Hypostomus gymnorhynchus, Loricariidae), using a genomic shotgun library to obtain the repetitive sequences. Twenty-four primers were designed and 14 individuals of H. gymnorhynchus from the Caiapó River, in central Brazil, were genotyped using these primers to analyze the polymorphism at each locus. All loci showed low polymorphism, with a low number of alleles per locus (1 or 2), except locus Hg_E19, which had 11 alleles. Expected heterozygosities for polymorphic loci ranged from 0.182 to 0.901. Combined paternity exclusion probability (0.857) was low and combined genetic identity (0.0026) was high, when we examined parentage. The low degree of polymorphism that we detected may be due to the small sample size and the small microsatellite size, despite the large motif size.