Endangered
Slackwater darter
Etheostoma boschungi
Some authors consider it to be a member of the stippled darter group.
Appearance
It is rather drab in color, with the dorsum being dusky, olivaceous, or brownish. The lateral blotches are dark brown to blue-black. The venter is slightly dusky and may have some orange and yellow pigments, that are more intense in males than in females.
Maximum size is about 55 millimetres (2.2 in) standard length.
Range and habitat
The slackwater darter uses two different, but adjacent, breeding and nonbreeding habitats. Its nonbreeding habitat is small to moderately large streams with moderate to slow currents. The species seems to prefer bottom conditions characterized by an accumulation of leaves and detritus, but in some areas, it has been found in association with clean silt, sand, and small gravel substrates.
In this area, the species is confined to a short segment of a very small stream, and the number of individuals is apparently quite low.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
The reproductive behavior of the slackwater darter varies with the temperature of the breeding habitat and the amount of rainfall. Spawning has not been recorded in water less than 14 °C (57 °F).
In addition, heavy rainfall must cause enough flooding to lift the darters into the breeding area. Usually, adult darters begin their migration to the breeding area in mid-January. By April, the darter progeny is developing and ready to leave the breeding area in May.
In crisis
Periodic sampling in the headwaters of the Buffalo River in Lawrence County has indicated its population of slackwater darters is extremely small and limited. The population in the Flint River drainage in Madison County, Alabama, is similarly small and limited. The largest population and the stronghold of the species is in the Cypress Creek drainage system, Wayne County, Tennessee, and Lauderdale County, Alabama.
Urbanization, ditching to drain areas with shallow groundwater, and degradation of ground and surface water from pesticides and waste are all serious threats. For example, the population in the Flint River drainage in Madison County, Alabama, is threatened by changing land use patterns associated with the growth of the city of Huntsville.
Slackwater 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 Slackwater darter, Wikidata item Q3756402. 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.
