Slough darter facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Slough darter |
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| Adult male Etheostoma gracile | |
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The slough darter (scientific name: Etheostoma gracile) is a small type of ray-finned fish. It belongs to a group of fish called darters, which are part of the family that includes perches.
These tiny fish like to live in water that moves slowly or at a medium speed. They prefer places with muddy, silty, or sandy bottoms. Slough darters mainly eat small creatures like chironomids (tiny fly larvae), copepods, and cladocerans (small crustaceans). In the spring, they also eat mayfly larvae.
Adult slough darters usually grow to be about 35 to 50 millimeters (about 1.4 to 2 inches) long. They are one of the many types of fish found in places like Tennessee.
Where Slough Darters Live
Slough darters are found in a wide area across the central and southern United States. They live in the Mississippi River basin, from central Illinois and northeastern Missouri all the way down to Louisiana. You can also find them in the Red River areas, reaching into southeastern Kansas and eastern Oklahoma. They also live in rivers that flow into the Gulf of Mexico along the coast, from the Tombigbee River in Mississippi to the Nueces River in Texas.
These fish prefer specific kinds of homes. They like calm pools in small streams, quiet backwaters of larger rivers, and even murky water over sand or mud. They can also be found in oxbow lakes, swamps, and among water plants.
How Slough Darters Reproduce
Slough darters breed at different times of the year depending on where they live. In the warmer southern parts of their range, like Texas, they lay eggs from January to March. Further north, in places like Illinois, they breed later, usually in May and June.
When they lay their eggs, slough darters attach them to underwater plants, leaves, or small twigs. Unlike some other fish in their family, the adult slough darters do not stay to guard their eggs.
Slough Darter Conservation Status
The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) has looked at the slough darter and listed it as a species of "Least Concern". This means scientists are not worried about it becoming endangered anytime soon.
There are a few reasons for this good status:
- The slough darter lives across a very large area in the Mississippi River system.
- There are many, many slough darters in total.
- They live in many different groups, so if one group has trouble, the whole species is still safe.
Overall, the number of slough darters seems to be stable, and there are no big threats that could harm them right now.
