Many species are sought by anglers as popular panfishes, and large numbers are bred and stocked in lakes, rivers, ponds and wetlands.

They are widely distributed throughout the freshwater lakes and river tributaries of the United States and Canada, and several species have been translocated and flourished around the world, even becoming pests.

Subgenera in bold follow Bailey (1938): L. humilis L. macrochirus L. gulosus L. kansasensis† L. serratus† L. symmetricus L. cyanellus L. auritus L. marginatus L. peltastes* L. gibbosus L. microlophus L. punctatus L. miniatus L. sp.

The timing of this speciation event roughly corresponds with the Middle Miocene disruption that resulted in increased aridity on the plains of North America and a transition from savannah to grasslands,[8] although the relevance of these environmental changes to the evolution of Lepomis is unclear.

No fossils unambiguously assigned to genus Lepomis are currently known from the putative stem-lineage that must have existed between 25 and 15 million years ago, spanning most of the early Miocene.