Distribution:
South-central portions of the state. Generally confined to the drainages south of, and including the Arkansas and Verdigris rivers.
The observations from Allen, Coffey, Labette, and McPherson counties were reported via the Kansas Anuran Monitoring Program (KAMP). KAMP records are by call only (visual identification is not required). Spotted Chorus Frog calls are easily confused with those of the Boreal Chorus Frogs, and therefore, these records need to be corroborated with specimens.
(,   Museum Voucher) (,   Observation) (,   Literature Record) (,   iNat Record), (  Fossil)
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Full range depicted by light shaded red area. Export Google Earth (.kml)

• Occurrence Summary:  
• 460
  Records 
• 302
  Museum Vouchers 
• 158
  Other Observations 

Some county occurrences indicated below may be too imprecise to map above.
County Breakdown: County Name (# occurrences):
Allen (1); Barber (46); Barton (1); Butler (10); Chautauqua (21); Clark (10); Coffey (2); Comanche (47); Cowley (19); Ellis (16); Finney (3); Ford (3); Gray (13); Greenwood (14); Harper (39); Harvey (1); Haskell (6); Hodgeman (1); Kiowa (12); Labette (12); McPherson (2); Meade (21); Montgomery (11); Ness (1); Pawnee (12); Pratt (3); Rush (7); Russell (1); Sedgwick (39); Seward (2); Sumner (82); Trego (1); Unknown (1);

Fossil History:
Reported from the WaKeeney Local Fauna of Trego County based on a single right ilium (UMMP V55414) missing the anterior portion of the shaft by Wilson (1968) and an ilium (MSU-VP 764) by Holman (1976). The WaKeeney Local Fauna site is considered Lower Pliocene: Middle or Late Clarendonian (13,600,000 to 10,300,000 years BP). This site is marginally extralimitial of the species current range, however Chantell (1964) reported a fossil specimen from the Norden Bridge Local Fauna (Upper Miocene: Valentine Formation) in Brown County, Nebraska.

Natural History:
They are found in open prairie grasslands and pastures. They breed in shallow ponds, cattle tanks, and ephemeral streams. As winter approaches, they burrow under thatch and loose soil until March and April rains bring them out again. The call is a raspy trill wrraaay-wrraaay-wrraaay repeated 20-30 times rapidly. They call from March into June.
The Spotted Chorus Frog inhabits open prairie grasslands and the edges of woodlands. It is most active during spring and summer rains and becomes very secretive during dry weather, probably retreating to underground burrows. This small frog is active from March to September. Little is known of its habits in Kansas.
The Spotted Chorus Frog breeds opportunistically from March to September, depending on rainfall and suitable temperatures. Apparently, it breeds in open, shallow, temporary rain pools, although mating sometimes occurs in permanent ponds. Males chorus and attract females to breed. Clasping may occur for an entire day, and each female deposits up to 1,000 eggs. The eggs are laid in small masses of 6- 30 each on grasses and stems just below the water surface. The eggs hatch in two to ten days, and the tadpoles remain in the pond until they metamorphose in late summer.
Fleharty and Johnson (1974) reported the Spotted Chorus Frog in a breeding chorus together with American Toads and Leopard Frogs during mid-April in Chautauqua County. The frogs were calling from an alfalfa field flooded by recent rains. Gray and Stegall (1979) found a single example of this frog in a cave in the Red Hills on 29 September. I observed a breeding chorus of these frogs, together with choruses of Plains Spadefoots and Great Plains Toads, by day in a roadside ditch in Comanche County on 11 May.
No specific information on the food preferences of this frog in Kansas is available, but it probably eats small insects.
Predators of the Spotted Chorus Frog include larger frogs, large birds, and snakes.

Occurrence Activity:
Number of Unique Obervations (=days): 103; Range: 17 Mar to 13 Oct

Chorusing:

Audio recording by Keith Coleman.

Chorusing Phenology: The black outlined dots denote the Julian date (day of the year; 1 January = 1 to 31 December = 365) an observation was made. The thin red line depicts the range of dates between the beginning of the first, and end of the fourth quartile (excluding outliers; Tukey method). The thick light blue bar represents the second and third quartile (interquartile range; the middle 50% of all observations). Only one observation per Julian date is included in the graphs; so a date with multiple observations carries the same weight as a date with only one observation. The vertical bars correspond to the 12 months of the year; January through December.
Number of Unique Obervations: 163; Range: 22 Mar to 28 Aug; Interquartile range: 22 Apr to 03 Jun;

Remarks:
The Spotted Chorus Frog was first reported in Kansas by Smith, (1933) in his Master's thesis as Pseudacris nigrita. The earliest existing specimen (USNM 45828) was collected at Kiowa (Barber County) by famed Bureau of Biological Survey naturalist Vernon O. Bailey on 31 August 1892.
The records mapped for Ellis and Russell counties by Collins (1993) is in need of verification. There are pockets of Boreal Chorus Frogs along Big Creek and the Smoky Hill River in these two counties which possess broken striping and resemble Spotted Chorus Frog. These northern spotted Pseudacris do not have green blotches as do most Spotted Chorus Frogs, and instead, are colored as typical Boreal Chorus Frogs. Live specimens are needed to verify their presence.Smith (1933) reported Pseudacris nigrita from Kansas based on six specimens (KU 4511-6) from Rush County. By the time his thesis was published a year later (Smith, 1934) he considered these specimens to be P. clarkii, though he remarked on their confounding characters and placement, which is still in debate today (Moriarty and Cannatella, 2004).
Moriarty and Cannatella (2004), Moriarty (2007), and Moriarty et al. (2008) found that Pseudacris clarkii and Pseudacris maculata were not reciprocally monophyletic.