It is found in the coastal plain area of the Mississippi River basin, typically in medium-sized streams with slow currents over sandy substrates where it feeds on midge larvae and other small invertebrates.

This fish has a wide range and is relatively common, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists it as a "least-concern species".

They inhabit moderate-sized streams that have slow water current where they feed on the sand bed midge larvae and entomostracans.

[3] The scaly sand darter is found throughout Mississippi in the Pearl, Coastal, and Pascagoula River drainages of the Gulf of Mexico Basin.

Sightings have been made in the western tributaries of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.

The species is also found from western Kentucky and southeastern Missouri south to southern Mississippi and west to eastern Oklahoma and Texas, and in drainage basins of the Gulf of Mexico from the Pascagoula River in Mississippi to the San Jacinto River in Texas.

[1] The scaly sand darter was first formally described in 1882 by the American ichthyologist Oliver Perry Hay (1846–1930) with the type locality given as the Pearl River at Jackson, Mississippi.

Common and scientific names of the fishes of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, 7th edition.