Noturus phaeus
Ictaluridae · freshwater water fish
2 minute read · Species guide
The brown madtom (Noturus phaeus) is a species of madtom catfish native to the southern United States.
The distribution of the brown madtom includes disjunct tributaries of the Mississippi River from the Obion River in Tennessee and Kentucky south to southwestern Mississippi and central and northern Louisiana extending to extreme southern Arkansas. It occupies creeks and small rivers with sand-gravel riffles and runs with debris, rocks, and undercut banks.
Article text: Wikipedia contributors, Brown madtom (source revision). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
The FishTraits compilation records these diet categories for this species: invertebrates or larval fish. These are broad categories, not a claim that every individual consumes every example in a category.
Reported feeding positions include bottom feeding. The compilation combines published observations; diets can vary with age, locality, and available food.
Reported habitat associations include creeks.
The source records associations with sand, gravel, boulders, organic debris, large woody material. An association indicates reported use, rather than an exclusive requirement.
The compilation reports a representative maturity age of 1.5 years. Its maturity field summarizes mean, median, or modal estimates, usually for females; male estimates can be used when female data are unavailable. It is not a fixed age at which every fish first breeds.
Recorded spawning months are May, Jun, Jul, Aug for the source’s reporting region (MS). This is a regional calendar, not a range-wide schedule.
The reproductive-guild classification includes guarding eggs or young at a spawning substrate or nest.
FishTraits reports a maximum total length of 15 centimetres. Some entries use an estimated asymptotic length; this value should not be treated as a certified record catch.
Recorded longevity in the compilation is 5 years. Wild observations were preferred, but captive records were accepted where wild records were unavailable, and unspecified records were assumed wild. The value is not a guaranteed wild lifespan or an aquarium life expectancy.
Range
A blank area on the dot layer usually means nobody sampled there, not that the fish is absent. Turn on “every survey site” to see where the survey looked.
The USGS stream survey caught it at 124 of its sites, in 4 states. That survey and the GBIF records are two different counts of two different things, so the site keeps them apart.
Habitat
Classification
Closest relatives
Same family
