Black buffalo

The black buffalo, Ictiobus niger, is a large freshwater fish of North America in the sucker family, Catostomidae. It lives in large and small rivers across the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio basins and in the southern Great Lakes, with records from Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, and it reaches west and south into eastern Texas and Oklahoma. Its mouth sits on the underside of the head, so it feeds on the bottom, taking mostly Asiatic clams along with detritus and sand. Both its mouth position and its body shape fall between those of two close relatives in the same genus, and it is separated from the smallmouth buffalo with some difficulty by its smaller eyes and more streamlined body. It spawns in spring in flooded areas and backwaters, laying sticky eggs that sink. Accounts of its lifespan differ widely: Wikipedia reports that it can live for more than a century, while FishBase lists a maximum reported age of 24 years. It is of special concern in several US states and is threatened by dams that fragment large-river habitat, by bowfishing and by competition from invasive bighead carp.