This species has often been called Myotis ricketti, but the older M. pilosus has priority.

The erroneous reporting of the type locality as being in Uruguay by Wilhelm Peters led to the dual naming.

[1] Rickett's big-footed bat is a widely distributed habitat specialist that is strictly dependent on water since its diet consists in large proportion of fish.

Near Beijing, its diet was 60% pale chub (Zacco platypus), and 13% water beetles.

[1] Rickett's big-footed bat was featured in the BBC video series Wild China.