The Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout is a form of the cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii) that is considered either as a separate subspecies O. c. behnkei, or as a variety of the Yellowstone cutthroat trout (O. c. bouvieri). The fish takes its common name from its original habitat, the Snake River of southern Idaho and western Wyoming, and from its unusual pattern of hundreds of small spots that cover most of its body, differing from the larger-spotted Yellowstone cutthroat pattern. Genetically, it cannot be distinguished from the Yellowstone cutthroat trout, and before the construction of dams, no physical barriers were between the ranges of the two subspecies in the Snake River drainage.