Some darters are widespread throughout North America, most notably in the Mississippi Basin, but others are restricted to single streams, leaving them vulnerable to extinction. It inhabits all New York watersheds except Erie and Allegheny. Individuals are known to live for 4 years. It is associated with freshwater habitat . Females lay their eggs on smooth rocks where the largest male will then fertilize and guard the eggs. tessellated darter (Raesly et al., 1990). The tessellated darter is found in the eastern United States from the Connecticut River system in New Hampshire (Scarola, 1973) and the Ottawa River, eastern Ontario in Canada (Scott and Crossman, 1973), south on the Atlantic coastal plain to the St. Johns River, Florida (Cole, 1967). The collections of E. olmstedi bracket a 1980 range expansion by the non-native Banded Darter, E. zonale. Male Southern tessellated darters have larger second dorsal fins than females, which they use to repel other males while protecting their nests. 107 TABLE A2. Etheostoma olmstedi (Tessellated darter) is a species of bony fishes in the family Percidae.
The Southern tessellated darter’s diet typically consists of insects, small fish, and crustaceans found in coastal streams. Biologists are working to better describe the southern tessellated darter’s distribution, occurrence and abundance in the Ocklawaha River Basin in north-central Florida. tessellated darter using criteria included in definitions in 68A-27.001, F.A.C., and following the ... destroyed much of the original habitat inhabited by tessellated darters. Here, this hypothesis is tested by examining the trophic morphology of specimens of the native Tessellated Darter, Etheostoma olmstedi, collected at Catatonk Creek, Candor, Tioga Co., NY, USA, between 1961 and 2002. The darters are cold watered fish that do not take to pollution very well.
The Orange Creek watershed appears to be the only location where tessellated darter populations are stable. Each river basin has for the most part it own sets of darters. (Channel Darter Percina copelandi, Logperch Percina caprodes, Fantail Darter Etheostoma flabellare, Tessellated Darter Etheostoma olmstedi and Johnny Darter Etheostoma nigrum) in four tributaries of the Ottawa River (Québec, Canada) sampled in 2011 and 2012 (N=1133). It is generally widespread in all but western NY. We compared the habitat use by Etheostoma olmstedi in sympatry and allopatry with the non- native E. zonale to determine if a habitat shift has occurred. Tessellated Darter lives in streams and ponds with sand or mud bottoms. In some streams that are also inhabited by Johnny Darter, the two have some separation by Tessellated being more downstream and in areas with sandy bottoms. They also hope to identify and describe its habitat, and analyze genetic differences between Florida populations and those in other states. This causes problems when there are cities and contaminants in river basins.