Habitat

The Pealip redhorse lives in large to medium-sized rivers; like the closely-related shorthead, it usually frequents faster current than some of the gray-finned species. Clear, sediment-free water and abundant insect life is essential to providing good habitat for this species. It spawns on gravel riffles in the spring.

According to the US Geological Survey, the Pealip Redhorse occurs from Western Iowa, through most of Missouri and eastern Nebraska, to northern Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma. It is also could possibly be found in extreme southwest Minnesota, right along the Iowa border near Worthington. It survives in a few scattered areas of Nebraska. Essentially, the shorthead redhorse and its two sister species (pealip and smallmouth) comprise the small-headed, red-tailed redhorse species from three areas: the mainstem Mississippi drainage (Shorthead), the Missouri River drainage (Pealip), and the Ohio River drainage (Smallmouth). Of course, if you go even farther up the Missouri, you once again run into what the USGS calls "Shorthead Redhorse" in the upper Missouri and Yellowstone, which is a little strange. I would be curious to look closely at the redhorse from the Missouri River in South Dakota.