Tombigbee Darter: Facts & Habitat

About Tombigbee Darter

The Tombigbee darter (Etheostoma lachneri) is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish, a darter from the subfamily Etheostomatinae, part of the family Percidae, which also contains the perches, ruffes and pikeperches. It is endemic to the eastern United States, where it occurs in the Tombigbee River system in northeastern Mississippi and Alabama. It inhabits sand- and rock-bottomed pools of headwaters, creeks, and small rivers, and small streams with mixed sand-gravel substrate, and creeks with mixed sand, gravel, and hard clay or bedrock substrate. The Tombigbee darter was first formally described in 1994 by Royal Dallas Suttkus and Reeve Maclaren Bailey with the type locality given as Wolf Creek, a tributary to the Little Souwilpa Creek near Alabama State Route 17 in Choctaw County, Alabama.

NativeFresh2 states

Etymology

The specific name honors the American ichthyologist Ernest A. Lachner (1915–1996).

Article text: Wikipedia contributors, Tombigbee darter (source revision). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-11.

Range

Where it lives

74%of mapped records

Share of 785 GBIF observation records with a state location, across 2 states. The orange dots are USGS stream-survey sites where this species was caught.

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.

Share of records by state

The USGS stream survey caught it at 30 of its sites, in 2 states. That survey and the GBIF records are two different counts of two different things, so the site keeps them apart.

Habitat

Water and movement

Water: WoRMS records this species in fresh water.
Migration: Undetermined

Classification

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Superclass: Actinopterygii
Class: Teleostei
Order: Perciformes
Family: Percidae
Genus: Etheostoma
Species: Etheostoma lachneri
ITIS TSN: 201988
WoRMS AphiaID: 1010889
GBIF key: 2382394

Common questions about Tombigbee Darter

What is the scientific name of Tombigbee Darter?

The scientific name is Etheostoma lachneri, in the family Percidae. Classification follows ITIS.

Does Tombigbee Darter live in fresh water or salt water?

WoRMS records this species in fresh water.

Where has Tombigbee Darter been recorded in the United States?

GBIF has observations in 2 states, with the most records in Alabama, Mississippi. The map shows observation records, which do not establish the complete natural range.

Closest relatives