''Etheostoma osburni'', the candy darter or finescale saddled darter, is a species of fish in the family
Percidae, a member of the group known as
darters
The darters, anhingas, or snakebirds are mainly tropical waterbirds in the family Anhingidae, which contains a single genus, ''Anhinga''. There are four living species, three of which are very common and widespread while the fourth is rarer a ...
. This species is
endemic to the eastern
United States where it is known only from the
Kanawha River system in the states of
Virginia and
West Virginia.
Description
''Etheostoma osburni'' can reach a length of , though most only reach about .
[ This species has a lifespan of up to three years. It spawns in April and May.][NatureServe. 2017]
''Etheostoma osburni''.
NatureServe Explorer V.7.1 Accessed 8 August 2017. It is an invertivore, feeding on aquatic insect larvae and water mites.[
]
Habitat and distribution
''Etheostoma osburni'' lives in a system of rivers, streams, and creeks in the central Appalachian Mountains. It can be found in rapid riffles in rocky riverbed habitat. It occurs in cold, cool, and warm waters, as long as the substrate is rocky and the water is clear. It tolerates fast currents.
Conservation
''Etheostoma osburni'' has a limited range, it has been recorded in more than 10 locations and does not have a severely fragmented distribution, so it has been designated a near-threatened species
A near-threatened species is a species which has been categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as that may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but it does not currently qualify fo ...
on the IUCN Red List. In 2018, US Fish and Wildlife Service designated it as a federally protected endangered species.< It is probably declining, however, due to threats from human activity.
Taxonomy and etymology
''Etheostoma osburni'' was first formally described as ''Poecilichthys osburni'' in 1932 by the American ichthyologist
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...
s Carl Leavitt Hubbs and Milton Bernhard Trautman With the type locality
Type locality may refer to:
* Type locality (biology)
* Type locality (geology)
See also
* Local (disambiguation)
* Locality (disambiguation)
{{disambiguation ...
given as Stony Creek which is a tributary of the Greenbrier River in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.specific name Specific name may refer to:
* in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database
In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules:
* Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...
honors the American zoologist Raymond Carroll Osburn (1872-1955). The candy darter is considered to be closely related to the variegated darter (''E. variatum'').
See alsoEtheostoma osburni
References
Further reading
*Kessinger, Brin E., "Utilizing conservation genetics as a strategy for recovering the endangered Candy Darter (Etheostoma osburni) in West Virginia" (2020). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 7670.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/7670
*Leftwich, K. N., et al. (1996)
The candy darter (''Etheostoma osburni'') in Stony Creek, George Washington–Jefferson National Forest, Virginia. Trout Predation, Distribution, and Habitat.
Center for Aquatic Technology Transfer, USDA Forest Service.
*Dunn, C. G. (2017) ''Habitat and Imperilment of the Candy Darter Etheostoma osburni in the New River Drainage, USA'', Master of Science Thesis, Virginia Tech.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q305806
Fish of the United States
osburni
Taxa named by Carl Leavitt Hubbs
Fish described in 1932
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot