Original description as Alburnellus simus:
- Cope, Edward D & H.C. Yarrow. 1875. "Report upon the collections of fishes made in portions of Nevada, Utah, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, during the years 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874". Engineer Department, United States Army, Report upon the Geographical and Geological Explorations and Surveys west of the one hundredth Meridian. 5(6):635-703 (ffm00084)
Conservation: Notropis simus is evaluated by the international union for the conservation of nature in the iucn red list of threatened species as (EN) endangered (1996). Reported extinct in 1964 by Burkhead (2012).