Abstract Vampyressa melissa (Thomas, 1926) is a rare species listed as vulnerable by IUCN. Its distribution encompasses the eastern slope of the Andes from Peru to Colombia. However, the northern part of its distribution exhibits a gap of 1050 km. Here, we record two new localities for V. melissa in the eastern foothills of the Colombian Andes, filling the distribution gap 223 km to the south of the northern most known locality and 822 km to the north of the nearest locality in Ecuador. Finally, we propose hypotheses about the factors that could determine the rarity category of this species.