No nest is built, but the small spawning area is guarded by the male. Pearl dace are forage fish for larger sport fishes in some waters. They feed on aquatic insects, free-floating animal plankton, and a variety of other small aquatic organisms. Distribution of the pearl dace in NY state. Dark dots represent where actual samples of pearl dace were taken.
White dots represent historic distributions.
A 116 KB image of the pearl dace is also available for download .