Its habitat consists of areas with sandy or gravelly soils, including prairies, sandhills, wide valleys, river floodplains, bajadas, mesquite grassland, thornscrub, semi-desert areas, creosote bush desert, open montane woodland, semiagricultural areas (but not intensively cultivated land), margins of irrigation ditches, and sometimes mountain canyon bottoms (Degenhardt et al. 1996, Hammerson 1999, Werler and Dixon 2000, Stebbins 2003). Periods of inactivity are spent burrowed in the soil or in existing burrows. Eggs are laid in nests a few inches below the ground surface (Platt 1969).

This species ranges from southern Canada, through the United States to northern Mexico. Its range extends from southern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, and southern Manitoba southward through primarily the Great Plains region to southeastern Arizona and central Mexico (San Luis Potosi), discontinuously east to Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, and eastern Texas, and disjunctly west to central Wyoming; reported occurrence in northwestern Colorado need verification (Conant and Collins 1991, Walley and Eckerman 1999, Stebbins 2003). The single record for Arkansas is based on a misidentified specimen (Irwin 2001). Its elevational range is from near sea level to around 2,440 m asl (8,000 feet) (Stebbins 2003).

This species probably is effectively protected in at least several areas of federal, state, and private lands (e.g., national parks and grasslands, state wildlife management areas, large cattle ranches).