In Australia, a small sub-population is found on Barrow Island, while the mainland type is widespread, though in decline, across northern regions of the country.

In 1997, it was discovered in the savanna country of southwest Papua New Guinea, in the upper Bensbach River area.

[5] The species was first described by John Gould, naming this hare-wallaby as Lagorchestes conspicillata, and provided an illustration that was included in The Mammals of Australia (Volume II) as plate 59.

Lumholtz refers to this animal as a kangaroo-rat,[8] although that term is now the common name for species of a North American rodent genus.

[2][9] A spectacled hare-wallaby fossil was discovered in Queensland dating up to 11,000 years ago from the early Holocene.