The Spotted Chorus Frog is characterized by moist skin, a round snout, a light line along the upper lips, and a pattern of dark-edged pale spots (sometimes merging into stripes) scattered irregularly on the back and limbs. The head, body, and limbs are gray. The spots on the back and limbs are pale green and edged with dark gray or black. Some specimens may have a triangular mark between the eyes the same color as the back spots. A greenish stripe passes through the eyes on each side of the head. The belly is white. Males differ from females by their dark throats.
Adults normally 19-28 mm (¾ to 11⁄8 inches) in snout-vent length. The largest Kansas specimen is a male (KU 4515) from Rush County with a snout-vent length of 31 mm (1¼ inches) collected by Theodore E. White on 12 August 1927. This is the maximum length throughout the range (Powell et al., 2016).
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.
Adults may be found active during or immediately following any warm (>50° F) rainy nights in south central Kansas. Drive blacktop roads with light traffic through grassland habitats and be prepared to stop for every whitish pebble-looking bump on the road. The best time to find adults is while they are chorusing (late April through May) following spring rains. They prefer ephemeral flooded fields and ditches to larger impoundments. Public land areas that support populations are Clark State Fishing Lake, Copan Wildlife Area, Hulah Wildlife Area, Slate Creek Wetlands, Hodgeman Wildlife Area, Isabel Wetlands Wildlife Area, Anthony City Lake, Coldwater City Lake, Big Basin Prairie Preserve, and Texas Lake Wildlife Area.
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.
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.
References
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