Recent DNA studies split the former broad complex. Miniopterus schreibersii is now treated as a species of Europe, North Africa, and part of the Near East; former sub-Saharan African, East Asian, and Australian populations are separate species.
Its fur is short, very dense, and silky. The back is gray or ashen, more rarely grayish brown, with a paler underside; the wing membranes are dark.
It hunts mainly moths in flight, using open spaces, forest edges, clearings, and areas below the canopy.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.