[8] The fur of the species is soft and fluffy, with the base of hairs being light grey, the dorsal side hair grey brown and the ventral side grey-white, with juvenile bats having more of an ash-grey tint to their fur.

[10] The greater horseshoe bat ranges from North Africa and southern Europe through south-west Asia, the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Himalayas to south-eastern China, Korea, and Japan.

[1] In northern parts of its range, the horseshoe uses warm underground sites, both natural and artificial, as summer roosts as well as attics.

[14] Horseshoe bats also live in montane forests among the mountains and valleys of the Himalaya in South Asia and roosts in caves, old temples, old and ruined buildings in tight clusters.

(Cow pats are part of its life cycle, acting as a food source and habitat for the larvae.

Up to 100 larvae can be found in a single cow pat; while the adult beetle is most abundant in August when the young bats begin their first feeding flights.

[15][8] The feeding area from the maternity roost is typically of radius 4 km, as neither the lactating females or young can travel far.

It hunts in terrain with poor tree cover such as hillsides and cliff faces, and in gardens where it locates insects from a resting place and then intercepts them.

[22] Curiously, related females have also been found to share sexual partners, which might serve to increase relatedness and social cohesiveness in the colony.

[4] Females raise their young in communal maternity roosts, and show strong fidelity to the sites where they themselves were born (so-called natal philopatry).

[25] In general the greater horseshoe bat is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN because: "This species has a large range.

Deforestation, mostly caused by logging operations and the conversion of land for agricultural and other uses, threatens the species in South Asia.

The species also occurs at Berry Head in Devon and has a monitored roost site at Woodchester Mansion in Stroud.

Like all horseshoe bats it is sensitive to disturbance, and is threatened by the use of insecticides and the elimination of beetles by the changing agricultural practices.

Greater horseshoes have declined for numerous reasons ranging from the use of agrichemicals (Ivermectin in particular) to loss of habitat and redundancy of farming methods.

Avermectin kills off insect larvae and thus a decrease in the abundance of food for the Horseshoes, causing them to travel farther and face increased dangers.

Habitat loss is primarily due to the lack of established hedgerows and deciduous woodland-pasture ecotones.