White Sucker

A plain-looking bottom feeder of North American lakes and streams, the white sucker gets its name from the fleshy, suction-cup mouth it uses to vacuum up food from the mud and gravel below.

Also known as: june sucker, common sucker, coarse-scaled sucker, eastern sucker, bay fish, black mullet

This fish is often confused with the longnose sucker and other sucker species. The white sucker's lateral line, the sensory stripe along its side, runs complete and unbroken from head to tail, which helps separate it from look-alikes.

A long, round-bodied fish with a dark back that can be green, grey, copper, brown, or black, and a pale underbelly. Its mouth sits low on the underside of the head and has thick, fleshy lips built for feeding off the bottom.

Lives in small streams, rivers, and lakes across the Midwest and Northeast of the United States, reaching south to Georgia and west to New Mexico. It tolerates murky and polluted water better than most fish, though it breeds poorly where water has turned acidic.

A bottom feeder that sucks up sediment along with the small invertebrates, algae, and plant matter living in it. Larger fish such as walleye, trout, bass, northern pike, catfish, and muskellunge prey on it in turn.

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  Blacktail Redhorse

  Moxostoma poecilurum

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  Eastern Creek Chubsucker

  Erimyzon oblongus

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  Lake Chubsucker

  Erimyzon sucetta

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  Smallmouth Buffalo

  Ictiobus bubalus

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  Spotted Sucker

  Minytrema melanops