Black-bellied fruit bats are endemic to the subtropical or tropical Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea.

Most of these bats now live and eat in the banana trees of the privately owned traditional gardens and the cocoa plantations.

[2] During the day, this flying fox usually roosts among dry banana leaves, a perfect camouflage given its burnt orange and black fur pattern.

They are thermally neutral from 28 to 33 °C (82 to 91 °F), from 28 to 16 °C (82 to 61 °F) the bats' body temperature drops about 3 degrees and oxygen consumption increases by 2 cm^3/(g.hr).

[4][6][7] The black-bellied back has been shown through research to be "strongly indicated as sister taxon to all other megachiropterans"[4] and to be a primitive form of the Pteropodidae.