Distribution:
This grassland amphibian can be found throughout the Great Plains from southern Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba in Canada south through the plains states into western Texas, New Mexico, eastern Arizona, and Chihuahua, Mexico. In Missouri it only follows the Missouri River from west to east across the state but is nowhere else. Disjunct populations are known from Arkansas and south-central Colorado. In Nebraska it is known from the entire state with the exception of the extreme southeastern corner. It is considered common and is not afforded any conservation status.
(,   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:  
• 657
  Records 
• 657
  Museum Vouchers 
• 0
  Other Observations 

Some county occurrences indicated below may be too imprecise to map above.
County Breakdown: County Name (# occurrences):
Adams (50); Antelope (3); Arthur (4); Blaine (5); Boone (1); Box Butte (7); Boyd (8); Brown (5); Buffalo (5); Burt (2); Butler (4); Cass (1); Cedar (70); Chase (2); Cherry (14); Cheyenne (1); Clay (1); Colfax (1); Cuming (2); Custer (2); Dakota (3); Dawson (3); Deuel (14); Dixon (8); Dodge (13); Dundy (4); Fillmore (3); Franklin (2); Frontier (12); Furnas (1); Garden (60); Garfield (5); Gosper (1); Grant (1); Greeley (9); Hall (14); Hamilton (1); Harlan (21); Hayes (1); Hitchcock (4); Hooker (4); Howard (1); Jefferson (1); Kearney (4); Keith (11); Keya Paha (6); Kimball (6); Knox (4); Lancaster (61); Lincoln (28); Logan (7); Loup (3); Madison (2); McPherson (1); Merrick (13); Morill (3); Morrill (3); Nance (3); Nemaha (1); Otoe (2); Perkins (21); Phelps (2); Pierce (3); Platte (5); Polk (4); Red Willow (18); Rock (3); Sarpy (4); Saunders (10); Scotts Bluff (1); Seward (1); Sheridan (11); Sherman (4); Sioux (2); Stanton (2); Thayer (1); Thomas (7); Thurston (1); Valley (2); Washington (9); Wayne (1); Webster (5); Wheeler (5); York (3);

Natural History:
The Plains Spadefoot is a grassland species and can be found in nearly any grassland or prairie habitat even those that receive minimal precipitation. Loose soils are preferred, and permanent water bodies are not necessary for survival. Small, temporary pools after heavy rains serve as adequate breeding grounds. Plains Spadefoots are considered explosive breeders. During and after heavy rains from late April through July, large aggregations will gather in temporary pools to call and breed. The advertisement call is a successive series of wah sounds, as in wah…wah…wah…wah…wah, each lasting about a half of a second. Because pools are temporary eggs must hatch quickly and tadpoles must metamorphose rapidly. Two kinds of tadpoles hatch – one is herbivorous, and another is carnivorous and cannibalistic. This strategy ensures that even if the pond dries too quickly for vegetation and algae to form, a proportion of offspring will still be able to feed, grow, and develop rapidly into metamorphosed toads. Newly metamorphosed spadefeoots often can be seen on wet roads during summer rain storms.

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: