[2] Slender madtoms occur west of the Mississippi River in the Ozarks of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri north to southern Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The slender madtom is moderately large with a terminal to sub-terminal mouth, flat head, small eyes, and black marginal bands on the median fins.

[2] Slender madtoms inhabit small to medium-sized streams, in riffle and flowing pool habitats with coarse gravel to slab rock substrates.

The slender madtom also occurs as several smaller, isolated populations in Iowa, Illinois and southern Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Due to habitat alteration along the small streams of the Tennessee drainage, this species may be in great danger of extirpation from Mississippi.

[6] Embryo predation by Orconectes virilis (virile crayfish), Campostoma anomalum (central stoneroller) and Etheostoma caeruleum (rainbow darter) has also been noted.

[8] The slender madtom inhabits the rocky riffles and pools of creeks and small rivers, spending much of the day hiding under large rocks and emerging to feed at night.

[citation needed] Mayden and Burr found that reproductive activity was concentrated from mid-June through July at water temperatures of 23.5–29 °C in Southern Illinois.

Females are capable of spawning their first summer, especially in harsher northern conditions, as long as a critical size is attained (approximately 50 mm in southern Illinois).

[6] Adult slender madtoms are weak dispersers, with poor swimming abilities, a characteristic that may have contributed to the existence of two disjoint populations of the species.