Kansas Herpetofaunal Atlas

Distribution:
Found statewide except for the extreme southwestern corner.

(, Museum Voucher) (, Observation) (, Literature Record)
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• Occurrence Summary:  
• 3,982 Total Records 
• 1,493 Museum Vouchers 
• 2,489 Other Observations 

Some county occurrences indicated below may be too imprecise to map above.
County Breakdown: County Name (# occurrences):
Allen (41); Anderson (13); Atchison (1); Barber (21); Barton (113); Bourbon (80); Brown (2); Butler (59); Chase (45); Chautauqua (34); Cherokee (59); Cheyenne (11); Clark (2); Clay (11); Cloud (21); Coffey (231); Comanche (19); Cowley (14); Crawford (42); Dickinson (5); Doniphan (6); Douglas (579); Edwards (8); Elk (7); Ellis (114); Ellsworth (34); Finney (51); Franklin (73); Geary (5); Gove (4); Graham (88); Gray (9); Greenwood (92); Harper (52); Harvey (53); Hodgeman (11); Jackson (102); Jefferson (6); Jewell (5); Johnson (44); Kearney (4); Kingman (20); Kiowa (1); Labette (81); Lane (7); Leavenworth (52); Lincoln (1); Linn (71); Logan (10); Lyon (29); Marion (98); Marshall (25); McPherson (119); Meade (1); Miami (49); Mitchell (2); Montgomery (101); Morris (3); Nemaha (18); Neosho (47); Ness (49); Norton (3); Osage (123); Osborne (21); Ottawa (4); Pawnee (19); Phillips (10); Pottawatomie (144); Pratt (57); Rawlins (1); Reno (21); Republic (2); Rice (10); Riley (44); Rooks (4); Rush (27); Russell (8); Saline (49); Scott (1); Sedgwick (74); Shawnee (17); Sheridan (19); Sherman (2); Smith (4); Stafford (48); Sumner (62); Thomas (1); Trego (17); Unknown (4); Wabaunsee (71); Wallace (2); Washington (15); Wichita (1); Wilson (47); Woodson (6); Wyandotte (5);

Natural History:
They are typically found in low-lying vegetated areas after significant late winter or early spring rains when they congregate in large numbers to chorus and mate. The call is a clicking trill (similar to running your fingernail along the teeth of a comb) lasting 2 to 5 seconds, which rises in inflection. They call from February into May. 

Like all chorus frogs, they are seldom found outside of the breeding season as they seek refuge under cover and only emerge after rains or humid nights to forage for small invertebrates. Hartman (1906) reported algae and ants in the stomachs of four young specimens and spiders from two adult individuals.

Occurrence Activity:
The blue dates denote chorusing actity. The red dates are other occurrences. The darker a date is, the greater the relative number of observations for that date.

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.
# Unique Obervations: 2418; Range: 25 Feb to 14 Oct; Interquartile range: 04 Apr to 11 Jun;

Remarks:
The Boreal Chorus Frog was first reported in Kansas by Cragin, (1880). The earliest existing specimen is from 1891 (USNM 45921).

An extremely observably abundant amphibian during following late winter and spring rains. At other times of the year, this species is seldom encountered, and can most often be found crossing roads on rainy nights while foraging.

Moriarty and Cannatella (2004), Moriarty (2007), and Moriarty et al. (2008) found that Pseudacris clarkii and Pseudacris maculata were not reciprocally monophyletic.

Bibliography:

Account Last Updated:
3/25/2019 8:08:34 AM