The scaly sand darter is a species of freshwater fish

Freshwater fish

Freshwater fish are fish that spend some or all of their lives in freshwater, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 0.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, the most obvious being the difference in levels of salinity...

 endemic to the southeastern United States.

Description

The scaly sand darter grows to between 5.4 to 7.3 cm (2.1 to 2.9 in) in length. It has nine to sixteen spots on each side, with irregular dark blotches on the back, with dark bands on the dorsal, caudal and spinal fins. It inhabits sand

Sand

Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...

y beds of slow-moving rivers and creeks, and feeds on midge

Midge

A midge is a very small, two-winged flying insect. "Midge" may also refer to:-Real:* Midge Costanza , American politician* Mildred Gillars , aka "Midge", American broadcaster of Nazi propaganda during World War II...

 larva

Larva

A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...

e and entomostraca

Entomostraca

Entomostraca is a historical subclass of Crustacea, no longer in technical use. It was originally considered one of the two major lineages of crustaceans , combining all other classes – Branchiopoda, Cephalocarida, Ostracoda and Maxillopoda. The Ostracoda have the body enclosed in a bivalve...

ns.

Distribution

The species is found in the Mississippi River basin

Mississippi embayment

The Mississippi Embayment is a physiographic feature in the south-central United States, part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. It is essentially a northward continuation of the fluvial sediments of the Mississippi River Delta to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. The embayment...

 from western Kentucky and southeastern Missouri south to southern Mississippi and west to eastern Oklahoma and Texas, and in drainage basin

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

s of the Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...

 from the Pascagoula River

Pascagoula River

The Pascagoula River is a river, about 80 mi long, in southeastern Mississippi in the United States. The river drains an area of about 8,800 sq mi and flows into Mississippi Sound of the Gulf of Mexico....

 in Mississippi to the San Jacinto River in Texas.