It is found only in Australia, east of the Great Dividing Range, from about Rockhampton to Melbourne, with a small isolated population on the Atherton Tablelands.

In December 2014, two new females were found in one box, both lactating with attached young, one recently born and still bald, the other older, fully furred and nearly the same size as its mother.

[4][2] Troughton's description was of a bat that occurred within New South Wales, and in urban buildings, but was not recognised or previously studied during the preceding century.

[2] The first description used a series of specimens, the first of which was noticed by taxidermists employed to rid a church of its bat colony.

The workers from the Australian Museum, H. S. Grant and J. H. Wright, succeeded in obtaining a second specimen at the All Saints Church in Hunters Hill, New South Wales.