Endangered
Bluemask darter
Etheostoma akatulo
This fish is found only in the Caney Fork River system, a tributary of the Cumberland River in Tennessee.
Appearance
The species differs from other species of the subgenus Doration by having fully scaled cheeks, complete lateral line, breeding males with bright blue pigment completely covering the lower face, and breeding males with soft dorsal and anal fins lacking orange and blue pigment. The species name akatulo comes from the Cherokee for "mask", referring to the solid blue coloration on the lower face of the fish.
Range and habitat
Bluemask darter is known from five small rivers and large creeks of the upper Caney Fork River system, Tennessee, among them Collins River, Rocky River, Calfkiller River, Cane Creek, and upper Caney Fork River. Bluemask darter is most abundant and widely distributed in Collins River, where it occurs in a 37-km reach between Shellsford, Warren County, and Tennessee Highway 56, 1.2 km east of Mt. In the Rocky River, the species inhabits only a 4.3-km reach from Tennessee Highway 30 upstream to Laurelburg Road ford, Van Buren Co., among them a 1.7-km reach that alternates between backwater and free-flowing conditions as Great Falls Reservoir fluctuates between maximum (244 m) and minimum (240 m) pool elevations.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
During spawning Bluemask darter males and females have been seen occupying different microhabitats. Substrate dominated by gravel were occupied by lone males and spawning pairs, whereas most lone females were found over a sand-dominant substrate.
After the spawning period, Bluemask Darters move to sandy substrates in low-velocity areas of intermediate depth. Bluemask darter is believed to demonstrate the same egg laying behavior.
In crisis
Bluemask darter is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Bluemask darter, Wikidata item Q3758017. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
