| Distribution: |
North America: USA. The Citico Darter occupies an approximately 3.5 river km reach of Citico Creek in Monroe County, Tennessee, just downstream of a U.S. Forest Service boundary. The creek is a tributary of Tellico Lake, an impoundment of the mainstem Little Tennessee River. The population in Citico Creek historically extended further downstream than its current distribution suggests. One individual was collected 13 December, 1979 from lower Citico Creek prior to its inundation by Tellico Lake (D. Etnier, pers. comm.). The darter is historically extirpated from Abrams Creek, a tributary of Chilhowie Lake also impounding the Little Tennessee River, in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Blount County, Tennessee, where it is known from three specimens collected in 1937 and 1940. This and other at-risk fish species (Jenkins & Burkhead 1984; Simbeck 1990) apparently were extirpated from Abrams Creek by application of rotenone throughout the tributary system below Abrams Falls during 1957, a plan designed to reduce food and habitat competition for a Rainbow Trout fishery (Lennon & Parker 1959). Etheostoma sitikuense has been propagated and reintroduced to lower Abrams Creek, below Abrams Falls and stocked in Tellico River using Citico Creek stocks (Rakes & Shute 2005; Shute et al. 2005; Rakes & Shute 2008). (Ref. 78849). |
