Little is known about the ecology and distribution of this species. Usually recorded in lowland moist evergreen forest and plantations (Reid 2009). This bat visits flowers and probably feeds on nectar, pollen and probably occasionally fruits as well as insects (Tschapka 2004), the reproductive biology is yet unknown (LaVal and Rodríguez-Herrera 2002). This small specialized nectar feeding bat shows seasonal movements, at the Costa Rican Atlantic lowland rain forest the species was only seasonally present, between September and February, in response to seasonally high availability of nectar resources (Tschapka 2004). Its day roosts are easily accessible cavities at or under fallen trees. As these structures occur frequently on slopes along streams, they are widely distributed, somewhat predictable and may be easily found by migrating bats (Villalobos-Chaves et al. 2013).

This species occurs from Chiapas, Mexico, south through eastern Guatemala, southern Belize, Honduras, the Isthmus of Panama, and northwestern South America, the western versant of the Andes of Colombia and Ecuador (Reid 2009, Griffiths and Gardner 2008). Lowlands to 1,000 m (Reid 2009).

It is important to keep and improve the conservation of forests, as this is the main action to prevent habitat fragmentation. The species occurs in a number of protected areas throughout its range. It was listed as Vulnerable in the Red List of Ecuadorean mammals (Tirira 2011).