Distribution:
Found throughout much of the eastern third of Kansas, generally south of the Kansas River and east of the Flint Hills.
(,   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:  
• 2,225
  Records 
• 619
  Museum Vouchers 
• 1,606
  Other Observations 

Some county occurrences indicated below may be too imprecise to map above.
County Breakdown: County Name (# occurrences):
Allen (23); Anderson (5); Bourbon (43); Butler (2); Chase (1); Chautauqua (48); Cherokee (914); Coffey (56); Cowley (3); Crawford (604); Douglas (3); Elk (8); Franklin (5); Greenwood (6); Johnson (8); Labette (113); Linn (101); Lyon (6); Miami (24); Montgomery (120); Neosho (30); Osage (4); Unknown (21); Wabaunsee (2); Wilson (48); Woodson (26); Wyandotte (1);

Fossil History:
Not known from Kansas.

Natural History:
This frog is found in marshes, swamps, lakes, ponds, sloughs, rivers, and creeks. During the summer, it may wander great distances from water. There is evidently no home range or territory in this species.
The Southern Leopard Frog is active from March to October within a wide range of temperatures. It may be active during winter in the proximity of caves.
This frog retreats into the mud and leaves of lake and stream bottoms during cold winter months and remains inactive until the advent of favorable spring temperatures. Collins (1982) reported finding this species in leaves beneath a limestone rock overhang behind the splash zone in a small Ozarkian stream in Cherokee County on 16 March.
According to Caldwell (1986), the Southern Leopard Frog normally breeds in March and again in September in Kansas, weather permitting. During the breeding season, males begin to chorus, attract females, and mount them by clasping the females behind their front limbs. Each female may lay up to 5,000 eggs in numerous round clumps. Rate of development until hatching is dependent on water temperature and may take up to three weeks. The tadpoles metamorphose during late summer.
Southern Leopard Frogs may be active during day or night and are explosive breeders on rainy Spring nights. Southern Leopard Frogs breed primarily in the late winter and early spring. They have been observed calling in the Fall in Kansas, but are not known to produce clutches of eggs.
This amphibian feeds on a wide variety of insects and other small invertebrates.

Occurrence Activity:
Number of Unique Obervations (=days): 219; Range: 08 Jan to 23 Dec

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: 348; Range: 24 Feb to 20 Jul; Interquartile range: 25 Mar to 25 May;

Remarks:
The determination of the first record of this species in Kansas is difficult because up until Mecham et al. (1973) and Pace (1974) Lithobates blairi and L. sphenocephalus were lumped in with L. pipiens and that L. sphenocephalus is sympatric with Lithobates blairi for its entire range in Kansas except for southeast Cherokee County. They can be distinguished by calls but this was not recorded in the early literature. The best means to separate Lithobates blairi and L. sphenocephalus from the early literature records is their distribution where they are not sympatric (Lithobates blairi west of the Flint Hills and L. sphenocephalus in Cherokee County) and by reference to breeding/chorusing dates (L. sphenocephalus calling begins in March and peaks in early April, while L. blairi calls later, beginning in April, but not peaking until mid-May). Based on this, Gloyd (1932) reported chorusing at Pigeon Lake (Miami County) in mid-March, strongly indicating that the species present at that time were L. sphenocephalus.
The earliest recorded specimens (KU 9522-3 and KU 9627, 9630) from Kansas were respectively collected at Cow Creek in Pittsburg, Crawford County, in 1911 (day and month not given) and at Osawatomie, Miami County, on 17 June 1911.
The records in the Arkansas/Walnut River watersheds Cowley County (FMNH 25651) and Butler County (two KAMP observations [calls, not sighted]) are in need of verification.