TN00111 TENNESSEE SNUBNOSE DARTER ETHEOSTOMA SIMOTERUM
Physical description: This is a snubnosed darter of medium size, with the adults from 40-55 mm SL. The body is moderate to robust, most robust and rather compressed in large males. The snout is short, slightly rounded to very blunt, bluntest in large males; narrow frenum present, sometimes obscured by a crease. The branchiostegal membranes are widely conjoined, and the caudal fin is slightly emarginate or truncate. The female genital papilla is moderately long AND tubular. The lateral line is complete, scales (42)48-53(58). The number of scales above lateral line is (4)5-6, and the scales below lateral line 6-8. Circumpeduncle scales number 17-20. The dorsal spines number (10)11(13), dorsal rays (10)11(13), anal spines 2, anal rays (6)7(8), and pectoral rays (13)14(15). The nape, opercle, and cheek are fully scaled, and scale are usually embedded on the cheek. The belly is fully scaled or unscaled anteriorly. The breast is usually naked. The breeding male has a an undulate-margined midlateral black stripe. It some- times has the black reduced and that stripe suffused with blue-green. The dorsolateral and ventolateral areas have undulating rows of orange spots, on a gold or tan base, or these areas nearly fully orange. The dorsal saddles are black. The head has black and blue-green, with the latter best developed on the snout, lips and venter. The breast is black. The fins where not black are clear. The first dorsal fin is orange-red, anterodistally sometimes only on the leading rays. The anal and pelvic are turquoise, brightest on the least blackened anal *4205*. Reproduction: In Copper Creak, Virginia, two females were spent on 2 June 1981. In the Big Sandy, Virginia, females were gravid and males in peak color on 29 June 1983. This species is an egg-attacher, usually ovipositing on the sides and top of large stones *4205*. Behavior: The bulk of food of young and adults is midge larvae, supplemented by other aquatic insect larvae, microcrustaceans, water mites and snails. Gut contents of 102 largely adults from Virginia included small numbers of amphipods and fingernail clams. They feed benthically by day but partition food resources by usually occupying different current speeds and foraging sites than E. rufilineatum *4205*. Limiting factors: This species is limited by pollution and siltation from urbanization and coal mining *4205*. Population parameters: They rarely survive a second winter, and the oldest specimen was 23-24 months old. Fecundity ranges from 110-240 mature ova *4205*.
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4205
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