The dung moss Splachnum ampullaceum is reported from a high elevation pitch pine — spruce—sphagnum wetland in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia. The only previous collection was made in 1968. This collection is the first to be included in state herbaria. The two collections (made in 1968 and 2005) were found growing on soil (presumably humified dung) in the Allegheny Front region (Spruce Knob and Red Creek Plains, respectively) in the Monongahela National Forest. The distance between the two sites was only 35 km (and 37 years). The abundantly fruiting plants, with conspicuous red setae (6–7 cm long) and two-tone capsules (yellow above, purple and swollen below), were overgrown by Sphagnum, as is typical for this ephemeral moss. Spores from two capsules were introduced onto peat pellets sprinkled with composted cow manure. Protonemata covered the pellets in three weeks and developed into a dense tuft (1.2 cm high after six months in culture) of bright green shoots that showed primarily vertical growth. This appeared to mimic the two-stage process in nature whereby a dung moss claims a dung pat: establishment phase of spreading protonemata and subsequent vertical vegetative phase. S. ampullaceum is a circumboreal-montane species that tends to have a scattered distribution. It evidently favors cool, moist conditions that retard decay of the dung, thereby allowing time for sporophyte maturation and fly-mediated spore dispersal to fresh dung. The best approach for conservation of this staterare species is to preserve high-elevation wetland habitat, particularly Sphagnum-dominated wetlands in the Allegheny Front.