Males overall have boxy heads with enormous lips, while the females, with their narrower snouts, have more foxlike faces. Males and females both have dark brown fur, with a paler mantle (sides and back of neck). It has patches of white fur at the base of the ears, though sometimes indistinct. The fur is long and smooth, though somewhat woolly in texture on the mantle. The ears are triangular and blackish-brown, and the eyes are very large. The dental formula is for a total of 28 teeth; very occasionally, individuals have been found with an additional upper premolar on each side of the mouth, for a total of 30 teeth. The skull is larger and more robust than any other megabat in Africa, with a pronounced, massive snout. The tongue is large and powerful, with an expanded, tridentate tip. The tongue has backwards-facing papillae used to extract juice from fruits.