It is endemic to the New River drainage in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Article text: Wikipedia contributors, New River shiner (source revision). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
Notropis scabriceps
Leuciscidae · freshwater water fish
2 minute read · Species guide

New River shiner (Notropis scabriceps) is a species of ray-finned fish in the genus Notropis.
It is endemic to the New River drainage in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Article text: Wikipedia contributors, New River shiner (source revision). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
The FishTraits compilation records these diet categories for this species: invertebrates or larval fish. These are broad categories, not a claim that every individual consumes every example in a category.
Reported feeding positions include bottom feeding. The compilation combines published observations; diets can vary with age, locality, and available food.
Reported habitat associations include medium to large rivers, streams and small rivers, creeks.
The source records associations with sand, gravel, vegetation. An association indicates reported use, rather than an exclusive requirement.
The compilation reports a representative maturity age of 1.5 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.
Batch or serial spawning has been reported somewhere in the species’ range. This does not establish the same spawning pattern for every population.
Recorded spawning months are May, Jun, Jul for the source’s reporting region (NC). This is a regional calendar, not a range-wide schedule.
The reproductive-guild classification includes spawning on open substrates without guarding the brood.
FishTraits reports a maximum total length of 8.4 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
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 20 of its sites, in 3 states. That survey and the GBIF records are two different counts of two different things, so the site keeps them apart.
Habitat
Classification
Closest relatives
Same family