It occurs in deciduous forests, lowland rainforests and mountain, gallery and riverine forests, savanna woodlands, and logged and second-growth forests. In a set of recent surveys carried out in Gabon, this species was found country-wide in rainforest, forest–savanna mosaics and dense woodland (Bahaa-el-din et al. 2013). It is known to visit cultivated fields bordering forest edge (Van Rompaey and Ray 2013). It is predominantly frugivorous, although it forages opportunistically for vertebrates and insects (Van Rompaey and Ray 2013).

This species is widely distributed from Gambia to southwest South Sudan, southern Uganda and western Kenya, and from northern Angola, and northwestern Zambia to DR Congo and western Tanzania. It is then discontinuously distributed in eastern and southern Africa in montane and lowland forests of Tanzania, Malawi, parts of Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, south to about 20°5’S (Van Rompaey and Ray 2013). It is also present on Bioko Island (Eisentraut 1973), although historically rare (Harrington et al. 2002) and Zanzibar (Perkin 2004, 2005). It occurs from sea level up to 2,500 m asl on the Mbeya range in Tanzania (D. De Luca in Van Rompaey and Ray 2013).

It is present in many protected areas across the range.