Wide distribution range from Senegal, Guinea and Sierra Leone eastwards through much of West Africa to Sudan, Ethiopia, northern Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and central Kenya. Not confirmed from Tanzania, though Kingdon (1974) gives a locality record from the north of Tanzania. There is also an isolated record from Mount Marsebeit in Kenya, a moist area where X. rutilus occurs. There is a small population in Morocco in the Souss Plain.
Recorded to 2,450 m (in Ethiopia; Yalden et al. 1996).