Spottail Shiner (Notropis hudsonius)
The spottail occurs in a broad band from the Mackenzie River in northwest Canada to the St. Lawrence River and south to the Missouri drainage and southern Illinois. On the Atlantic slope, it occurs from New Hampshire to the Chattahoochee River in Georgia. In New York, it was absent from the Allegheny and Genesee Rivers, the central Adirondacks, and Long Island.
Spottails occur in a variety of habitats from large lakes and rivers to small streams. It seems to do best in clear waters and at times becomes quite abundant in Lake Erie, where it occurs offshore in water at least 60 feet deep.
The life history of the spottail shiner has not been thoroughly studied. Spawning appears to take place in June or July over sandy bottom and at the mouths of streams where the ripe fish assemble in large aggregations. Ovarian egg counts range from 100 to 2,600 depending on size of the female.
Distribution of the spottail shiner in NY state.
A 171 KB image of thespottail shiner is also available for download.
The above species description was taken out of "The Inland Fishes of New York State" by C. Lavett Smith, published by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, 1985.