Males typically migrate before females, and maintain and defend small territories near undercut banks with rooted vegetation.
They migrate from deeper regions of lakes and streams to the shallow, vegetated reaches for spawning. This may be due to increasing turbidity limiting their preferred habitat. They appear to be decreasing in distribution over the last decade, and the limiting factor seems to be their habitats. Iowa darters are considered vulnerable due to decreasing abundance and distribution. It has never been found in the stomach of any fish-eating animal because it is too quick to catch. The Iowa darter eats copepods, water fleas, and midge and mayfly larvae it finds in underwater vegetation.
THESSA EXILE 2.0 ZIP ZIP
The darter can zip along stream and lake substrate looking for food using less energy than other fish, which would keep floating up off the bottom. To move around, they make short dashes of astonishing speed (hence the name), often faster than the human eye can follow. They lack swim bladders, so sink to the stream or lake bottom. Iowa darters prefer cool, clear water over a sand or organic-matter substrate. They also have a dark wedge shape below the eyes that is well developed. Their sides are mottled and fade into a silver-white on their bellies. Females are olive-brown dorsally with darker splotches across the top of their backs. The bottom half of the spiny dorsal fin has blue spots between the spines and above the spots is a succession of three bands, orange on the bottom, clear in the middle, and then blue on the outside. Their sides are red with blue rectangular blotches and ventrally they are whitish with a dark wedge shape below the eyes. During breeding, males are olivaceous dorsally with darker splotches across the top of their backs.
The male and female Iowa darters have different color patterns. It has an anal fin with two (rarely one) spines and an incomplete lateral line. Its caudal fin is squarish and the pectoral fins and pelvic fins are located close to each other behind the gills. It has a small mouth and snout with scaled opercles and cheeks, two dorsal fins, one which is a spinous-rayed fin and another soft-rayed fin. Its common length is around 5.5 cm and its maximum age is three years. The Iowa darter has a very slim, small body. Two Iowa darters, male (on left) and female (on right).
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