Discovery of Ammocrypta Clara (Western Sand Darter) in the Upper Ohio River of West Virginia (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Ammocrypta clara (western sand darter) occurs predominantly in sandy reaches of medium to large rivers in the Gulf slope waters of eastern Texas, north throughout the Mississippi River to Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the Lake Michigan drainage of Wisconsin (Williams, 1975; Page, 1983). In the Ohio River drainage it has a fragmented distribution with records from the Wabash River in Indiana, the Cumberland, Green, Kentucky and Big Sandy rivers in Kentucky (Williams, 1975; Burr and Warren, 1986; Cicerello and Laudermilk, 1996), and the upper Tennessee River in Tennessee (Starnes et al., 1977) and Virginia (Jenkins and Burkhead, 1994). Within the Ohio River drainage, A. clara is sympatric with its sister species, Ammocrypta pellucida (eastern sand darter), in only a few river systems (Near et al., 2000). Based on published data, the closest record of A. clara to West Virginia is a single 1938 specimen (confirmed by Carl Hubbs) from Wolf Creek of the Tug Fork, Big Sandy River drainage, Kentucky (Clark, 1941; Burr and Warren, 1986).