Onychonycteris known species, hence "Onychonycteris" meaning "clawed bat". The specific epithet is a tribute to the fossil prospector and preparator who discovered it, Bonnie Finney. "Onychonycteris finneyi" was the strongest evidence so far in the debate on whether bats developed echolocation before or after they evolved the ability to fly. "O. finneyi" had well-developed wings, and could clearly fly, but lacked the enlarged cochlea of all extant echolocating bats, closer resembling the old world fruit bats which do not echolocate. This indicates that early bats could fly before they could echolocate. However, an independent evaluation of the "Onychonycteris" reference fossil in
Animal echolocation as 212 kHz. Insectivorous aerial-hawking bats have a call frequency between 20 kHz and 60 kHz because it is the frequency that gives the best range and image acuity and makes them less conspicuous to insects. However, low frequencies are adaptive for some species with different prey and environments. "Euderma maculatum", a species that feeds on moths, uses a particularly low frequency of 12.7 kHz that cannot be heard by moths. Echolocation calls can be composed of two different types of frequency structure: frequency modulated (FM) sweeps, and constant frequency (CF) tones. A particular call can consist of one, the