It is endemic to the island of Hispaniola (in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

John Treadwell Nichols and George S. Myers wrote their species description for L. melanonotata in 1923.

The holotype and 22 paratypes were collected by Gladwyn Kingsley Noble in Las Lagas, Hispaniola.

Nichols and Myers also identified a specimen collected by F. E Watson in Manville, Haiti as belonging to this species.

[5] It is found in the lower Artibonite River, Plain of the Cul-de-Sac, Haiti; extending to the Valle de Neiba (nl) in the southwestern Dominican Republic.