The two-inch snail darter became a symbol for regulatory overreach in the 1970s. New research suggests the fish was not an endangered species — or even a species.

That fish, the snail darter, soon became a symbol for the use of an endangered species as a way to prevent the development of projects across the country in the ensuing years.

Though small, the snail darter has played an outsize role in American law, conservation and biology. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters via Flickr. Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee ...

Scientists say the snail darter, whose endangered species status delayed the building of a dam in Tennessee in the 1970s, is a genetic match of a different fish. By Jason Nark For such a tiny fish ...

In the late-1970s, a small freshwater fish known as the snail darter made history when its newly acquired status as an endangered species helped to temporarily block construction of the Tellico Dam in ...

In the 1970s, the discovery of the Tennessee snail darter in the Tellico River was used to halt completion of the Tellico Dam under the Endangered Species Act (a tale many law students learn in TVA v.

The famous snail darter — immortalized in its own 1978 Supreme Court case that brought construction of a billion-dollar dam to a halt — turns out not to exist, say fish experts in a new peer ...

The snail darter is not a thing. It was just a common perch, say scientists. USFWS This one weird little fish — a beigeish critter found on sandy river bottoms in Tennessee and fond of munching ...

The snail darter is not a thing. It was just a common perch, say scientists. USFWS This one weird little fish — a beigeish critter found on sandy river bottoms in Tennessee and fond of munching ...

The snail darter is not a thing. It was just a common perch, say scientists. USFWS This one weird little fish — a beigeish critter found on sandy river bottoms in Tennessee and fond of munching ...