The male is mainly glossy black with white streaking; females and immature birds are browner.

The African darter is found throughout sub-Saharan Africa wherever large bodies of water occur; overall the species remains widespread and common.

[1] The only non-African subspecies, the Levant darter (Anhinga rufa chantrei), occurred at Lake Amik (Amik Gölü) in south-central Turkey, in the Hula Valley lake and marshes in northern Israel and in the Mesopotamian Marshes of the lower Euphrates and Tigris rivers in southern Iraq.

In Khuzestan, 110 birds were counted in 1990, but the subspecies was feared extinct as a result of oil spills during the Gulf War and the drainage of the Mesopotamian Marshes that followed it.

Thus the African darter is often seen sitting along the waterside spreading its wings and drying its feathers in the wind and the sun along with cormorants, which may share its habitat.