Crystallaria asprella
Crystal Darter
NS
G3
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Perciformes (Perciformes, Also Called the Acanthopteri)
Percidae (Perches)
Crystallaria
Crystallaria asprella (Crystal Darter)
Description
This species account was compiled from
FishBase (Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2025. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version 04/2025.)
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Characters
Body shape: elongated. Gape width 3.7-6.1% SL; preorbital blotch adjoined to or narrowly separate from anterior orbital rim; and pelvic fins not falcate; cheek scale rows 4-14, modally 11; opercle scale rows 2-13, modally 4; mid-lateral blotches 8-14, modally 10; anal-fin rays 12-16, modally 14; dorsal-fin spines 10-17, modally 14; scales below the lateral line 7-14, modally 9 (Ref. 74948).
Distribution
North America: Mississippi River basin from Ohio to Minnesota and south to southern Mississippi, northern Louisiana and southeastern Oklahoma in the USA; and on Gulf Slope in Escambia, Mobile Bay and Pearl River drainages. Now extirpated from Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois.
Habitat Associations
Freshwater. demersal.
Biology
Occurs in clean sand and gravel runs of small to medium rivers (Ref. 5723, 10294).
Max length: 16.0 cm TL; common length: 9.0 cm TL; max age: 3 years.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none. Assumed to be the same as A. pellucida.
IUCN Red List Status: Vulnerable (VU), assessed 2011-11-14. Resilience: Medium (tmax=3).
References
Page, L.M. and B.M. Burr (1991) A field guide to freshwater fishes of North America north of Mexico. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 432 p.
Etnier, D.A. and W.C. Starnes (1993) The fishes of Tennessee. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. (pls. check date).
Balon, E.K. (1975) Reproductive guilds of fishes: a proposal and definition. J. Fish. Res. Board Can. 32(6):821-864.
Welsh, S.A. and R.M. Wood (2008) Crystallaria cincotta, a new species of darter (Teleostei: Percidae) from the Elk River of the Ohio River drainage, West Virginia. Zootaxa 1680:62-68.
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