 It apparently has a fragmented distribution, and is threatened by deforestation.The bat was discovered by Richard Van Gelder, then curator of mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History.The bat was collected on the AMNH Puritan Expedition to Baja California in 1957 on the Tres Maria Islands (south of Baja) by Richard Zweifel (expedition herpetologist) and Oakes Plimpton (expedition assistant).