Critically Endangered
Vermilion darter
Etheostoma chermocki
On December 7, 2010, the US Fish and Wildlife Service designated 13 mi (21 km) of Turkey Creek watershed as critical habitat for the darter.
Appearance
The vermilion darter was given its name due to its vermilion (red) color on its ventral or belly side below the lateral line. Adult males can have bluish lower fins while females and juveniles have olive/yellow bodies with eight darker stripes across the top of the fish. The red spots on males' dorsal fins are larger than those on the females.
The darters can reach between 1.8 and 2.8 inches (45 to 71.1 mm) long and has a very short head.
It was first described by Herbert Boschung in 1992, who was the curator of ichthyology at the University of Alabama, along with biologist Richard Mayden and scientific illustrator Joseph Tomelleri.
Range and habitat
The vermilion darter can only be found in approximately 12 km (7.5 miles) of the upper area of Turkey Creek and lower areas of two tributaries in Jefferson County, Alabama. It is endemic to the southern United States, where it only is found in Turkey Creek in Jefferson County, Alabama, part of the Mobile Bay drainage basin. On December 7, 2010, the US Fish and Wildlife Service designated 13 mi (21 km) of Turkey Creek watershed as critical habitat for the darter.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Also found were fish eggs and some aquatic vegetation. Once sexual maturity is reached the males have courtship displays to attract the females, this takes place from January to April when breeding season begins.
The breeding season is believed to be from March to June and the sex ratio is 2:1 females to males. Darters are spawning fish that lay eggs, and there is only one location known that the vermilion darters use for spawning.
In crisis
According to the IUCN, the population of this fish is declining.
Vermilion darter is Critically 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 Vermilion darter, Wikidata item Q2838466. 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.
