Sucker is the name given to several kinds of fishes closely related to the minnow family. Most of them have mouths with thick, fleshy lips that help them suck up animal and plant life on the bottom of lakes and streams. Suckers are dull-colored except in the spring, when the males of some species have yellow to red fins and a rose or orange stripe.
Except for two species in China and one in eastern Siberia, all the suckers are native to North America. The white sucker is one of the most common North American suckers. It lives in streams in much of Canada and the northern part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. The larger species of suckers are food fishes. Large, carplike suckers known as buffalo are caught in the Mississippi Valley (see Buffalo).
