July 16, 1806, just east of present-day Livingston, Park County, Montana.
Suckers are small to moderately large, bottom-dwelling, freshwater fishes. This is a small sucker, seldom growing larger than 8 inches.
Occurs in a wide variety of habitats, but usually prefers cool, clear streams with clean rubble or sand bottoms, occasionally found in lakes.
Throughout the mountainous regions of the West from the Lahontan and Bonneville basins of California, Nevada, and Utah through the Columbia and Missouri drainages of British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. It is widespread throughout the Snake and Bear River systems in Idaho.
The food of this species is almost entirely algae, which is scraped off rocks by the cartilaginous sheath on the fishes' jaws.
