It was described as a new species in 1899 by German biologist Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer.

Von Meyer placed it in the now-defunct genus Nyctinomus with a binomial of N.

[2] The eponym for the species name "sarasinorum" was Paul and Fritz Sarasin, a pair of Swiss cousins who conducted a research expedition in Sulawesi.

[5] It is native to Southeast Asia where it is found in Indonesia and the Philippines.

[1] As of 2016, it is evaluated as a data deficient species by the IUCN.