A species first described by John Gould in his Mammals of Australia (1854), the author assigning it to the genus "Rhinolophus" with some hesitation. The specimens referred to by Gould and subsequent authors were obtained at Cape York peninsula and Albany Island (Pabaju) at the northeast of Australia. A taxonomic treatment in a new generic combination, as a subspecies of "Hipposideros galeritus", was published in a revision of the genus a century later by J. E. Hill, part of his extensive work on the systematics of the order Chiroptera. The species-complex of "H. galeritus" and other Australopapuan taxa of "Hipposideros" was again reviewed by Hill and