The Bat-eared Fox has a disjunct distribution range, occurring across the arid and semi-arid regions of eastern and southern Africa in two discrete populations (representing each of the known subspecies) separated by about 1,000 km. O. m. virgatus ranges from southern Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia down through Uganda and Kenya to south-western Tanzania; O. m. megalotis occurs from Angola through Namibia and Botswana to Mozambique and South Africa (Coetzee 1977; Kingdon 1977; Skinner and Smithers 1990). The two ranges were probably connected during the Pleistocene (Coe and Skinner 1993). This disjunct distribution is similar to that of other endemic, xeric species e.g., Aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) and Black-backed Jackal (Canis mesomelas).

Range extensions in southern Africa documented in recent years (e.g., Stuart 1981; Marais and Griffin 1993) have been linked to changing rainfall patterns (MacDonald 1982).