Fishes of Buck Creek, Kentucky 147 



dock operator, fishermen sporadically harvest walleye from the lower 

 mainstem. Site: 38(1). 



Sciaenidae — drums 

 Aplodinotus grunniens Rafinesque. Freshwater drum. This primar- 

 ily large-river fish (Smith 1979) was reported by Carter and Jones (1969) 

 and was generally distributed in the lower mainstem. Sites: 32(1), 38(2), 

 39(-). 



Cottidae — sculpins 

 Cottus carolinae (Gill). Banded sculpin. The banded sculpin was 

 reported by Harker et al. (1979) and was occasional in moderate to swift 

 riffles containing cobble and boulders. Sites: 25(1), 27(5), 28(7), 32(10), 

 33(1). 



DISCUSSION 



Seventy-three species of fishes and one hybrid, representing 13 fam- 

 ilies, were found to occur in the Buck Creek drainage. Approximately 

 80% consisted of members of the Cyprinidae (23 species), Percidae (14), 

 Centrarchidae (11), and Catostomidae (10). Of the 121 species reported 

 by Burr (1980) from the upper Cumberland River drainage in Kentucky, 

 70 are known to occur in Buck Creek. Of the remaining 51 species, 21 

 are known from adjacent streams or Cumberland Reservoir and poten- 

 tially occur in Buck Creek (Table 2). 



New distributional records were obtained for Ictiobus bubalus, 

 Ictalurus furcatus, and Lepomis microlophus in the upper Cumberland 

 River drainage, and the continued existence of Carpiodes velifer within 

 the drainage was confirmed. Within the Cumberland River drainage, 

 Ictiobus bubalus was formerly known to occur only in the lower part of 

 the river in western Kentucky, which has been impounded to create 

 Barkley Reservoir (Burr 1980; Lee 1980). Our collection extends the 

 known range of /. bubalus in the Cumberland River upstream approxi- 

 mately 854 km from the nearest downstream collection made at river 

 km 4.8 (D. A. Etnier, pers. comm.). Ictalurus furcatus had not pre- 

 viously been collected from the upper Cumberland River drainage of 

 Kentucky (Burr 1980). It was not entirely unexpected, however, since 

 specimens have been taken from the river in adjacent Tennessee (Glodek 

 1980; D. A. Etnier, pers. comm.). Lepomis microlophus is sporadic and 

 uncommon throughout the state, except in the upper Cumberland River 

 drainage (Burr 1980). Although the specimen from Buck Creek repres- 

 ents the first record for the upper Cumberland River drainage, the 

 redear sunfish has been widely stocked in impoundments and is proba- 

 bly not native to the drainage. Carpiodes velifer is sporadically distrib- 

 uted in the eastern half of Kentucky (Burr 1980) and was previously 



