Distribution:

As the name implies, Great Plains Toads are found throughout the Great Plains from southern Canada south through the plains states into lower elevations in Mexico and west into New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and barely entering Nevada and California. In Nebraska, Great Plains Toads are found throughout the state but are more common in the western half to two-thirds in areas of mixed and shortgrass prairies.

(,   Museum Voucher) (,   Observation) (,   Literature Record) (,   iNat Record), (  Fossil)
Open icons are questionable records; Click on a marker to view details.
Full range depicted by light shaded red area. Export Google Earth (.kml)

• Occurrence Summary:  
• 514
  Records 
• 514
  Museum Vouchers 
• 0
  Other Observations 

Some county occurrences indicated below may be too imprecise to map above.
County Breakdown: County Name (# occurrences):
Antelope (1); Arthur (2); Banner (1); Box Butte (7); Boyd (1); Brown (1); Buffalo (3); Butler (8); Chase (3); Cherry (1); Clay (54); Custer (2); Dakota (23); Dawes (3); Deuel (11); Dixon (1); Dodge (28); Dundy (3); Fillmore (2); Frontier (1); Furnas (1); Gage (6); Garden (3); Garfield (1); Gosper (1); Hall (3); Hayes (3); Hitchcock (24); Holt (2); Kearney (12); Keith (10); Knox (2); Lancaster (114); Lincoln (4); Logan (2); Loup (2); Madison (4); McPherson (2); Merrick (7); Nance (8); Otoe (4); Perkins (12); Phelps (2); Pierce (2); Platte (11); Polk (3); Red Willow (2); Rock (1); Saline (3); Sarpy (3); Saunders (45); Scotts Bluff (13); Seward (3); Sheridan (1); Sherman (2); Sioux (15); Thomas (5); Unknown (2); Washington (6); Wayne (3); York (9);

Natural History:
This species is a true grassland inhabitant and can be found using short, mixed, and tallgrass prairies throughout Nebraska. Although they can often be found along agricultural irrigation ditches and other fairly permanent bodies of water, they also occur in areas where water is highly seasonal and where no permanent water may exist for miles. Riverine flood plains are also areas where Great Plains Toads commonly occur. As with many arid grassland animals, spring rains trigger the active season for the Great Plains Toad. Males emerge and migrate to flooded fields, playas, and other temporary wetlands to call for females. The voice is both musical and metallic and resembles the sound of riveting, lasting for 10-50 seconds. Since wetlands are extremely temporary in much of their range, eggs hatch and tadpoles metamorphose into toadlets in about five weeks. Breeding lasts from May through July but ultimately is dictated by frequency of rain. Great Plains Toads are accomplished burrowers and will avoid extreme heat by digging into the soil. Warm rainy or humid evenings will bring them to the surface where they feed on various invertebrates.

Occurrence Activity:

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: ; Range: ; Interquartile range: ;

Remarks: