It is found from southern Mexico to Belize, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil, as well as in Trinidad.

The bats are nocturnal, sleeping during the day in an unusual formation: most of them line up, one after another, on a branch or wooden beam, nose to tail, in a straight row.

A colony of proboscis bats usually has a regular feeding area, typically a small patch of water.

Here the bats catch insects (in the form of midges [including chironomids], mosquitoes, beetles, and caddisflies)[7][8] using echolocation.

This small species of bat has been found to occasionally fall prey to the large spider Argiope savignyi.