[1] The species is known from fragmentary remains found at the Murgon fossil site, in south-eastern Queensland, dating to the early Eocene, 54.6 million years ago.

The material was discovered at the Tingamarra Local Fauna – Boat Mountain deposit, the type and only known location of fossil evidence of the species.

[4] The phylogenetic relationship to other Chiroptera is uncertain, but may represent an early geographic dispersal and separation from the crown clade of bat taxa found on other continents.

The specific epithet honours Elaine Clark, a person closely associated with the palaeontological research at Riversleigh and Murgon.

[7] Unlike other purported Eocene bats, such as the Wyonycteris species of Wyoming and Europe in the northern hemisphere, Australonycteris clarkae possessed many of the anatomical characteristics of the modern microchiropteran.