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.

The species was described by Ellis Troughton in 1937, assigning it first as Scoteinus orion then as the type of the genus Scotorepens he established in 1943.

[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.

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.