Objective: A single pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus results in a chronic state of spontaneous recurrent seizures resembling human temporal lobe epilepsy. We asked whether pilocarpine-induced epileptic seizures are more prevalent during day than during night as has been previously suggested by video-based monitoring. Methods: A prolonged status epilepticus (40 min) was induced by pilocarpine in 30-days old rats and terminated by diazepam. Control rats received saline instead of pilocarpine. After initial pilocarpine-induced seizures were observed, a telemetric EEG system was stereotactically implanted in pilocarpine- treated and control rats to enable a continuous video-EEG monitoring in an environment with a fixed 12-hours light-dark-cycle (lights on from 06.00h to 18.00h). Results: We collected continuous video-EEG data of 4 pilocarpine-treated and 2 control rats. Seizures detected by EEG screening and validated on video were evenly distributed during the light period (53%) and the dark period (47%). However, seizures did occur more frequently during inactive (immobility, 75%) versus active states (movement, 25%). Conclusion: Combined video-EEG monitoring can detect spontaneous recurrent seizures more reliably than the video-based monitoring alone. In particular during dark periods, the seizure rate may be underestimated due to the reduced quality of commonly-used infrared-video systems. Our data suggest, however, that seizure frequency in pilocarpine-treated rats correlates primarily to activity state rather than circadian rhythm.