Black Buffalo

I. niger is found in large and small rivers in eastern North America from the Mississippi Basin to Canada. In Canada, the species was first described in Lake Erie. In the United States, the species is found in both small and large rivers in the basins of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio as well as in southern Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. Among others, it is native to Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota; more southern states include eastern Texas and Oklahoma.

The ecology of I. niger is most closely related to I. cyprinellus. Due to the ventrally positioned mouth, the diet is benthic-oriented, with the Asiatic clam being the principal food. Detritus and sand are also ingested and contribute about 40% of the dietary volume. It is most commonly found in quiet, shallow waters. The U.S. angling record is 55.5 lb (25.2 kg) and was caught in Tennessee in 1984. The typical length is about 20–30 in (51–76 cm) with a maximum length of 48.5 in (123 cm). The typical weight is estimated to be about 10–30 lb (4.5–13.6 kg). A specimen caught in Shelby County, Tennessee, on April 1, 1980, was accepted as valid and weighed 80 lb (36 kg). I. niger relies on benthic organisms more heavily than I. bubalus. I. niger feeds mostly from the bottom.

Members of Ictiobus are large, robust-bodied suckers adapted to large rivers. Currently recognized species are readily diagnosed by morphological characters, and the group is known from fossils dating back to the Miocene. I. niger is a spring spawner. They spawn in flooded areas and backwaters of sloughs and small to large rivers. Fertilized eggs are demersal and adhesive. They hatch in 24–36 hours at 19–24 °C (66–75 °F). I. niger grows fairly rapidly, averaging 13.4 cm (5.3 in) after the first year. Black buffalo are reported to reach sexual maturity by the second year in the southern United States. The spawning period could take days, as its duration is not well established. One report of spawning buffalofish, believed to be I. niger, was made in Leflore County, Mississippi in the flood plain of the Yazoo River on April 21, 1930, when hundreds of buffalofish staged in flooded scrub along the margins of a cypress–tupelo swamp. According to observer Lee E. Yeager, the fish were insensitive to disturbance, swam into extremely shallow water not deep enough to cover their bodies and occasionally made small jumps. At three days "pale green to yellowish green" weakly aggregated egg masses were still visible, but many had been completely exposed by receding waters and turned blackish as they dried. …