[2] The redband darter inhabits shallow pools with rocky substrates as well as streams and springs.

[2] These springs, which are usually of moderate gradient and have limestone bedrock, rubble, gravel, and silt substrates.

Such streams are very productive and usually have growths of aquatic mosses, filamentous algae, and/or watercress.

[2] The common name refers to the breeding males which develop red bands along their flanks and on the dorsal fin.

[4] The redband darter was first formally described in 1887 by the American ichthyologist Charles Henry Gilbert (1859–1928) and biologist Joseph Swain (1857–1927), with the type locality given as the Stones River near Nashville, Tennessee.