Typically recorded from woodland savannas (both wetter and drier miombo woodland as well as mopane woodland). Also found in woodlands penetrating the rainforest zone, mangrove forests, Acacia-Commiphora deciduous woodland, riverine forest and thicket. The species may be largely absent from densely forested areas. Roosting sites are often under the canopy of trees, in thick foliage, with animals sometimes present in considerable numbers. The species is adaptable to human habitat modification, with populations recorded from well wooded urban and suburban areas, where it is associated with fruit-bearing trees, especially fig trees. Animals occasionally roost in man-made structures.

This species is found in Central Africa, East Africa and southern Africa (it is broadly distributed across southern Africa). It has been recorded from Cameroon (Aellen 1952), Equatorial Guinea (Rio Muni), Gabon, Congo and Angola in the west, through southern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, being distributed in East Africa from Uganda, Kenya and southern Somalia in the north, through Tanzania (including the island of Zanzibar), Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique into Zimbabwe, eastern and southern South Africa and Swaziland. There is a need to confirm the presence of this species in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. It ranges from sea level to around 2,000 m asl.

It is present in many protected areas. No direct conservation measures are currently needed for this species as a whole.