Image source: Caleb Wardlaw | inaturalist.org
The orangethroat darter is endemic to the central and eastern United States where it is native to parts of the Mississippi River Basin and Lake Erie Basin. Its typical habitat includes shallow gravel riffles in cooler streams and rocky runs and pools in headwaters, creeks, and small rivers, with sand, gravel, rubble, or rock substrates. It forages on the bottom for the aquatic larvae of midges, blackfly, mayfly and caddisfly, as well as isopods and amphipods. Spawning takes place in spring, the selected sites often being the upper stretches of riffles with sandy and gravelly bottoms interspersed with larger cobble. Reproductive success is high in this species. It is found in the eastern and western tributaries of the Mississippi River Basin from southeastern Michigan and Ohio to eastern Wyoming. Its range extends south to Tennessee and west to the northern section of Texas; Gulf drainages (Trinity River to San Antonio River) of Texas, mostly on Edwards Plateau. Locally, the orangethroat darter is found regularly throughout middle Tennessee in appropriate, high quality habitats. This species is found locally in the Cumberland drainage below Cumberland Falls, and in the lower Tennessee drainage upstream to the Pickwick Reservoir area. It is most abundant in streams of the northern and western Highland Rim, isolated populations occur in the Reelfoot Lake vicinity with stream draining bluffs.
