The greater short-tailed bat is the largest of New Zealand's three remaining extant bat species. Short-tailed bats use echolocation to hunt aerial invertebrates and olfactory senses to locate prey amongst leaf litter. Like its only close relative, the lesser short-tailed bat, it spends an unusually large proportion of its time on the ground, making it vulnerable to introduced predators such as rats. It disappeared from New Zealand’s North and South islands following European arrival some 200 years ago. It was subsequently restricted to small predator-free islands such as Big South Cape and Solomon Islands until rats were accidentally introduced in 1963. It is believed this had a catastrophic impact on the remaining population of the species with there being no confirmed sightings since 1967.