Blacknose Shiner: Facts & Habitat

About Blacknose Shiner

The blacknose shiner (Notropis heterolepis) is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae, the shiners, daces and minnows. This species is found in North America.

Native and introducedFresh21 states

Description

The blacknose shiner is a soft-rayed species up to 9.8 cm with toothless jaws, but gill arches that contain one or two rows of distinctive teeth. It has cycloid scales, but a scaleless head. There are 19 caudal rays, and the dorsal and anal fins are very short. The anal fin is closer to the middle of the body than to the caudal fin. Usually, it is a murky yellow on the dorsal side with a pale underside. There are two long, lateral stripes on the fish along the center of the body, and on the dorsal side of the fish.

Distribution and habitat

The blacknose shiner ranges from the Atlantic, Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and Mississippi River north to Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan, south to Ohio, Illinois, south-central Missouri. It is more prevalent in the northern sections of its range, and seems to be disappearing in the southern portions; it was last collected in Ohio in 1982. It lives typically in cool weedy creeks, small rivers, and lakes over sand.

Article text: Wikipedia contributors, Blacknose shiner (source revision). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-11.

Diet and feeding

The FishTraits compilation records these diet categories for this species: algae or phytoplankton; invertebrates or larval fish; fish or frog eggs. These are broad categories, not a claim that every individual consumes every example in a category.

Reported feeding positions include bottom feeding and surface or water-column feeding. The compilation combines published observations; diets can vary with age, locality, and available food.

Habitat preferences

Reported habitat associations include streams and small rivers, creeks, still-water habitats.

The source records associations with muck, clay or silt, sand, gravel, cobble, boulders, bedrock, vegetation. An association indicates reported use, rather than an exclusive requirement.

Reproduction and parental care

The compilation reports a representative maturity age of 1 years. Its maturity field summarizes mean, median, or modal estimates, usually for females; male estimates can be used when female data are unavailable. It is not a fixed age at which every fish first breeds.

Recorded spawning months are Jun, Jul, Aug for the source’s reporting region (WI). This is a regional calendar, not a range-wide schedule.

The reproductive-guild classification includes spawning on open substrates without guarding the brood.

Size and recorded longevity

FishTraits reports a maximum total length of 9.8 centimetres. Some entries use an estimated asymptotic length; this value should not be treated as a certified record catch.

Recorded longevity in the compilation is 3 years. Wild observations were preferred, but captive records were accepted where wild records were unavailable, and unspecified records were assumed wild. The value is not a guaranteed wild lifespan or an aquarium life expectancy.

Range

Where it lives

41%of mapped records

Share of 2,803 GBIF observation records with a state location, across 21 states. The orange dots are USGS stream-survey sites where this species was caught.

A blank area on the dot layer usually means nobody sampled there, not that the fish is absent. Turn on “every survey site” to see where the survey looked.

The USGS stream survey caught it at 271 of its sites, in 11 states. That survey and the GBIF records are two different counts of two different things, so the site keeps them apart.

Habitat

Water and movement

Water: WoRMS records this species in fresh water.
USGS NAS habitat: Freshwater
US status: Native transplant — native to part of the United States, moved to other waters inside it.
Migration: Undetermined

Classification

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Superclass: Actinopterygii
Class: Teleostei
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Leuciscidae
Genus: Notropis
Species: Notropis heterolepis
ITIS TSN: 163446
WoRMS AphiaID: 1017934
GBIF key: 2362139
Outside the US: ITIS also files it in Canada.

Common questions about Blacknose Shiner

What is the scientific name of Blacknose Shiner?

The scientific name is Notropis heterolepis, in the family Leuciscidae. Classification follows ITIS.

Does Blacknose Shiner live in fresh water or salt water?

WoRMS records this species in fresh water.

Where has Blacknose Shiner been recorded in the United States?

GBIF has observations in 21 states, with the most records in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin. The map shows observation records, which do not establish the complete natural range.

Closest relatives