Splotched Skiffia

The spotted skiffia is endemic to Mexico in the federal states of Jalisco and Michoacán. It was known to historically inhabit the lower Lerma River drainage where it was also included in several affluents such as the Duero River, Grande de Santiago River drainage and Lake Chapala drainage near Guadalajara. The only healthy population of the species however now remains in the Duero River drainage due to pollution, industrial development, habitat destruction, and invasive species in its previous distributions. It has also disappeared from Lake Camécuaro National Park due to introduced largemouth bass. The habitat of the species is small lakes, river channels, spring-fed ponds and ditches over substrates of silt, mud, sand, and rocks, where it prefers depths of less than a meter in clear to turbid water with little to no currents. If there are Taxodium roots the species will often use them as refuge and feed off aufwuchs and algae that grows on the roots.