In New York, it has been recorded from the Allegheny, Erie, Ontario and St. Lawrence drainages and from the Finger Lakes, Upper Mohawk and Susquehanna-Chemung watersheds. The blacknose shiner lives in small creeks and in the weedy shallows of lakes and ponds. Like some of the other blackstripe minnows, it is becoming rare in many parts of its range due to loss of habitat and deterioriating water quality. The life history of the blacknose shiner has not been studied but the NY Biological Survey of the 1930's reported females in spawning condition in the Niagara River in late July. The blacknose feeds primarily from the bottom and not at all from the surface.
Small individuals feed on vegetation.
Most of the feeding takes place early in the morning and late in the day. Distribution of the blacknose shiner in NY state. Dark dots represent where actual samples of blacknose shiner were taken. White dots represent historic distributions. A 213 KB image of the is also available for download .