 Temminck placed it in the genus "Vespertilio" with a binomen of "Vespertilio macrotis".The holotype had been collected near Padang on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.In 1940, Frederick Nutter Chasen published that he considered it a subspecies of the brown pipistrelle ("Hypsugo imbricatus"), though it was considered a full species in 2005 by "Mammal Species of the World".