Unlike other galagos, it is endemic to the thorny woodland/scrub and semi-arid thorn scrub which covers large tracts of south-western Ethiopia, Kenya (except for the coastal strip, semi-desert region east of Lake Turkana, and area east of Lake Victoria), and in Somalia from Odweina near the Red sea southward to the border with Kenya.

Olson, in his Ph.D. thesis in 1979,[4] and his paper of 1986,[5] raised it once again to the status of a separate species, which reclassification has not been disputed by other academics.

[3][6] The Somali lesser galago is considered to be a monotypic species, i.e. no subspecies have been defined.

[3] The galago's face and throat are whitish while the ears, eye-rings, muzzle and tail are black or dark brown providing a distinctive contrast.

In the field, the general appearance, call and preferred habitat aid in discriminating between them.