This member of the sucker family is mainly found in the southeastern United States, but also resides in the drainages of the Niagara River and Lake Huron, and in Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair in southwestern Ontario. Lake chubsuckers prefer clear waters with abundant aquatic plants: marshes, stagnant bays, floodplain lakes and drainage ditches, for example.

The lake chubsucker is described as robust and deep-bodied. It has a wide head, blunt snout, and small, protruding mouth, and sports dark-edged scales along its sides. Its back is deep olive to greenish-bronze; its underside, green-yellow to yellow-white. In Ontario, this fish tends to grow to lengths of 254 mm; elsewhere it can reach 410 mm in length.