This species has been recorded from Australia and Papua New Guinea, with an elevational range between sea level and 300 m asl. In Australia, it is generally restricted to coastal and near-coastal areas in northern and eastern Queensland from Shoalwater Bay to the tip of Cape York Peninsula, and the Torres Strait Islands (Duncan et al. 1999, Richards 2008, Woinarski et al. 2014). Within this range it occurs as a series of colonies in sea caves and rocky coastal clefts. In the southern part of the range it is largely restricted to a 3 km coastal band, but on Cape York Peninsula cave roosts have been detected further inland. Older surveys discovered colonies in more than 100 of 600 sea caves searched between Townsville and Cooktown (Duncan et al. 1999). Area of occupancy may be most appropriately determined by the total number of breeding sites (roost caves), however extensive surveys are needed to fully characterise colony occurrence (Woinarski et al. 2014).

Evidence for its presence in Papua New Guinea comes only from three historical records. Dobson’s (1878) record from Port Moresby was suggested to be an erroneous record by Koopman (1982). Two specimens in the Australian Museum collected in the late 1800s by the Royal Geographical Society Expedition do not have an associated collection locality but are likely from the Lower Strickland River that was the focus of the expedition (Flannery 1995, Bonaccorso 1998).